


The Genesis Anomaly

by TheLadyFrost



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Gen, Shameless Smut, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-08-26 01:12:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16671943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyFrost/pseuds/TheLadyFrost
Summary: They should have been enemies - but the death of a doppelganger has made them partners. When the world fractures, somehow the face he sees isn't the one that breaks him, but the one that rebuilds him.While one woman rebuilds a wounded warrior, and the other loses the battle to hers...what is it about them that makes them the same?While they all hold it together, something tries to rip them apart. They just don't understand that in this world, dead doesn't always mean finished.(multiple pairings. Finding love after falling apart post RE6).





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Incubation

"And so she looked and in looking, wanted. And so she wanted and in wanting, yearned. And so she yearned and in yearning, loved."

NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER  
.....

The musical tinkle of broken glass was lost under the pound of bass, the rapid gasp of shallow breathing, the meaty slap of striking skin. The picture glanced off his shoulder and hit the ground in a shower of shattered frame and memory.

Without a concern, he hefted her higher against the wall. Her laugh was like lightning in his blood, spurring him toward the delicious, delirious, and very delightful end of oblivion. It was a siren's song, the promise of nothing. It lulled and beckoned as he buried himself inside of her, hands wrapped around her thighs to hold her as if she weighed nothing.

Who she was didn't matter. It had never mattered. It would never matter. She was faceless, formless, and thoughtless. She was nothing. She was a hole for him to bury himself inside and a body that was warm and willing. She was a woman and, for just a few minutes in her embrace, she was emptiness.

She moved to kiss him and he diverted her mouth, burying his face against her breasts to avoid it. He didn't want the intimacy, didn't want the touch, the contact. He didn't want the pretense of feeling. This wasn't love. This wasn't lust. It was simply forgetting, and any move to make it more would ruin it.

His biceps and shoulders bulged beautifully as he lifted and set her down repeatedly on his eager body. When the angle was still wrong, he spilled her eager flesh across the kitchen table, rolled her onto her stomach, jerked her hips up toward him, and pounded himself into her soft body from behind.

He was fully aware she was writhing and tossing, screaming, making mewling cat noises. He was glad, in a way that she was enjoying herself but it didn't matter. She was willing flesh and her wants didn't change anything.

When she shuddered with orgasm, he pushed her flat against the table, kept one hand on her back to hold her there and readjusted her hips. The perfect angle was found two strokes later. He found it, worked it, felt her buck and pant and scream, and let himself follow after her. His body grabbed it's release, spilling wet and hot into the waiting condom.

He took his hand off her back and stepped away. She remained spread out over the kitchen table for a long moment like an obscene thanksgiving dinner.

It made sense seeing as he just finished stuffing her like a turkey.

She rolled onto her back and smiled at him, happy. "Wow. That was…"

"Yeah," He turned, naked and resplendent, and started to hunt for his clothes.

The waitress on the table had to admit he was something to see. Huge was your first thought when you met him. All shoulders, chest, and arms - the guy was almost obscenely muscled. She had trouble picturing him as an accountant or something. Why would anyone need that much muscle? Not that she was objecting…it worked. On him? It WORKED.

The light was still on in the bathroom and it cast a silvery glow over him as he dressed. It was a shame to cover up all that wonderful flesh. He wasn't exactly movie star handsome. Admittedly, he was a good looking guy, she mused, but he there was a cut of jaw or a line of brow or something that stole the word "cute" from the description of him and replaced it with things like "rugged".

He had a few days' worth of whiskers on his cheeks and hair cropped pretty close to his head. There was just enough of a style to the hair that it brushed the edge of fashionable. But it also had the look of a man who wasn't afraid to shave it down to the scalp to get it out of his way.

His eyes were blue and quite lovely set amongst some pretty thick eyelashes and a suggestion of crow's feet which made her speculate he was somewhere on the back side of thirty. He rocked it though. That was for sure. He was pretty sexy for an old guy.

"I've been waiting for you to talk to me, you know. You've been coming in to the bar for weeks."

He shrugged as he slipped a gray t-shirt over his head. He followed it with dull gray hoodie with a faded UMASS logo on it. The outfit worked in a basic way. Faded jeans, brown boots, t-shirt and hoodie. Nothing to get a girl's excitement chugging. That was until that jacket came off and you saw those arms.

It's certainly what had drawn her in the first time.

"Will I see you again?"

He shrugged again as he headed for the door. "Probably not."

From out the hallway came a little blue eyed girl of about three. "Mommy?"

The guilt licked like tongues of shame around his guts. He hadn't known there was a kid waiting for her. He felt like a son of a bitch from bringing the mother home to the child drunk and used.

Instead of facing the guilt, he fled. It wasn't his fault the mother was a whore with no tolerance for the sauce. Right? Right. Right….right.

He took the stairs two at a time down to the main floor of her raggedy apartment building. She lived in a flop on the back side of Tribeca. The area was as shitty as the building. But she was one of a thousand waitresses trying to make it as an actress in a city that ate crappy waitresses for breakfast, shit them out for lunch, and ate them again by dinner.

What could he say, it was a shit eat shit kinda world.

He crossed on foot toward the subway. It was a bit of a hike through the one of the crappiest slums around but it didn't worry him. There were very few people in the world stupid enough to try to mess with him. At this time of night it was him, three drunks, a handful of rowdy college kids, and your friendly neighborhood flasher on the subway.

He stayed standing, watching the muted screen flashing the five a.m. newscast. Snow was on the agenda for the next week. That would make for a happy fucking Halloween for the kids who'd be trick or treating in six inches of the white stuff. Admittedly, he'd have loved it as a kid.

He exited at his stop and started the six block walk to work. Logically he could go home, grab a few hours sleep. He was the boss, essentially. What was the point of being your own boss if you couldn't make your own hours? But, as usual, sleep eluded him. It was pointless to try to sleep when all you did was run from the nightmares. Pointless.

The building was wedged happily between two others in the industrial section of the meat packing district. It wasn't leased, which was a great triumph that had taken years and years of financially investing and planning, and it was, in most ways, his second home.

The lobby was done in pale white marble and soft yellow walls. It was tasteful and typical and nothing special. It looked like the lobby of any other building complete with two security guards who waved happily at him as he crossed it. A bank of elevators graced both sides of the hallway. He pressed the button for the penthouse, scanned his fingerprint into the scanner, and looked quickly into the retinal scanner for verification.

Cleared for access, he stepped onto his private elevator. It whisked him up forty eight floors to the top of the building. The penthouse was his private quarters when he was in the city. It hadn't been decorated by him at all. Everyone knew his Spartan taste wasn't much different than a sofa and a tv.

It was urban chic. Family pictures lined the walls here and there and were intermixed with artist's whom he wouldn't know if he were paid to. The color scheme varied. The main room was very black and red, very eye catching. It faded into his bedroom that was more blue and grey.

He could waste time thinking about it, but he seldom did. It was courtesy of his sister. So he didn't worry much about it one way or the other.

The bathroom was complete with a custom shower with eleven spouts. They hit his body at all angles, taking the guess work out of bathing. It was, he admitted, lazy. And he loved it. He tossed aside his clothes and climbed into the shower.

The bathroom was green marble and antique fixtures. One wall was an entire mirror. He was narcissistic enough to stop and flex once as he brushed his teeth. Every muscle bunched and stayed taut. He was a lot of things but out of shape wasn't one of them.

His stubbled face stared back at him from the mirror. The eyes were sky line blue framed by thick and spikey lashes. They were pretty eyes, passed down from two blue eyed parents. There were slight hollows under those eyes, dark circles from lack of slack, and those were passed down by Umbrella. He toyed with the idea of shaving and tossed it aside quickly enough.

Naked, he walked through his penthouse. One entire row of walls was nothing but windows. This high up the only people seeing his junk would be of the avian variety. And if a curious pigeon wanted to see his twig and berries, they were welcome to.

Suits weren't his forte but he owned enough to get by. He slipped into a gray pair of dress slacks over a pair of red boxer briefs. A men's dress shirt in screaming scarlet went on next over a white undershirt. He added a tie in a darker shade of red and left the matching gray suit jacket hanging on the back of the chair.

Surprisingly he looked pretty spiffy. It wasn't that he was incapable of dressing nice, he just didn't bother. For the most part, he was a jeans and ratty t-shirt kinda guy. But a business meeting required a certain level of decorum. He felt, sometimes, he was leaving his soul behind when he put on a suit. Some men belonged in Armani and some men belonged in Hanes.

It was a necessary evil to don the monkey suit and one of a thousand little deaths that had happened to him since starting his company. He was in the boardroom this morning, not on the battlefield. Although sometimes they were one in the same.

A half hour later found him in his office, enjoying a cup of strong black coffee and fielding his first boring phone call of the day.

"No. No you misunderstand me. I don't care about the red tape. I can't ask anyone to go out into the field without the right protection. I need the vaccines for my operatives yesterday." He listened, sighed, and combed a hand back through his hair. "Again, I don't think you're hearing me. I'm not sending people into a T-Virus zone without being inoculated. So if you want the area contained, "The door to his office opened, "then I suggest you get me those vaccines."

He ended the call and turned.

His assistant was standing in the doorway. Inga was his life line. She kept him going on a daily basis. She was the mother of three full grown boys and had the battle scars to prove it. She had artfully coiffed gray hair cut into a flattering pixie on a long, thin face. She was model skinny and had a perfect complexion that was now set into amused lines.

"What?"

"You're seven o'clock is here."

"This is funny?"

"It will be when you see what she's wearing."

Inga turned and gestured.

Ada Wong stepped into his office. And he got the joke

She was wearing a feminine version of what he was wearing. Only her pencil thin skirt was black. But her top was screaming red as were the ice pick heels she wore on her long, long, long legs. There was just enough cleavage exposed in the top to leave the viewer tantalized.

She was, for lack of a better word, beautiful.

He'd acquired her for the BSAA shortly after their time together in China. She'd come over from the dark side to be an attaché for the good guys as a freelancer. It was still an uncomfortable fit for both of them. But he appreciated her many, many questionably obtained talents. And her contacts were legion.

She was kept on a pretty loose leash. Ada rarely answered to anyone on the food chain but him. And even he struggled to keep her in line. She pretty much went where and did what she wanted. As far as he knew, she no longer dealt heavily in the underworld. She kept her fingers in the pies there, of course, and on the pulse, but she didn't collect pay checks from the bad guys anymore.

She'd made a reputation for herself. She didn't have to sell out to the highest bidder anymore. He knew something had changed with her since China. She was no longer on the wrong side. He wasn't sure what it was, he didn't ask. And he wasn't sure it mattered. But she was helping the cause now. It was something to be grateful for.

"Ada Wong."

"Christopher Redfield." She cocked a brow at him as the door was politely closed by Inga. "I'd say this look doesn't suit you, but in a way it does."

"I'd tell you that you look beautiful…but I generally find it stupid to state the obvious."

"I tend to agree." She tossed the file folder in her hand on his desk. "The blue prints for the lab in Moscow. Although I suggest you consider sterilization instead of infiltration."

Curious he crossed around his desk and perched on the edge, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm all ears."

"They're experimenting with something nasty down there. I'm pretty sure they have access to most of Spencer's research and a good portion of Birkin's."

"We knew this already. There's nothing new there."

Ada hesitated and he figured the next bit of intel wasn't good. "I suspect they have Wesker DNA down there."

Chris felt the back of his neck prickle. He wasn't sure what was on his face though. It felt stony and vaguely blank.

"How goods the intel?"

"Flawless. From the horse's mouth, so to speak."

"You get someone inside?"

"Of course. The asset is in place. Reports should be coming in weekly now."

Chris nodded. "Okay. Great. Thank you, Ada."

Ada shrugged a little. She shifted where she stood. "I don't usually make requests, but I'm going to make one."

"Alright."

"If you go in, I want to go with you."

He lifted a brow in surprise. "You want to be on the task force?"

"Yes. If they are trying to resurrect Albert Wesker, they need to be put down. The world doesn't need that psychotic asshat resurrected nor any of his brethren."

Chris laughed a little. "Asshat. Not really a word you expect to hear from Ada Wong."

"When the hat fits…" She paused, briefly. Her instincts said to leave it at that. But something on his face arrested her instincts. What did they call him? The Hammer? He didn't look like a hammer. He looked like a nail that had been pounded flat and lifeless. So, Ada broke her comfort zone and spoke to him levelly. Why? Because in all the years she'd been doing this, she had yet to work with a man she enjoyed nearly as much as Chris Redfield. He was a whirlwind of never the same thing twice. He was NEVER boring. And she liked to repay that kind of interest with her own, "You look tired."

It was an odd and personal statement. Ada wasn't known for personal statements. She often flirted, harmlessly, almost casually and could, by turns, be witty and dismissive. But she was seldom personal.

"Age and mileage."

She tilted her head, studying him. "The nightmares are usually easier if you don't sleep alone."

Uncomfortable with the excellent insight, he shifted. "And who's waiting at home for you to snuggle up to?"

"No one. But the nightmares left me alone a long time ago."

"Oh yeah. Why's that?"

"Because they figured out there was something a whole lot scarier in the dark then them."

"And what's that?"

"Me."

He smiled a little and pushed away from the desk to circle back and admire the sky line outside of the office. The back wall was entirely made of windows. It was a thing in New York, the ability to see the sky line. It's the only thing that kept people from feeling like beasts trapped in an urban cage.

The Big Apple wasn't his favorite place. There was no wide open wonder here. No easy to breathe, no water, no sky. There was just smog and slog and commerce and too many people bustling too fast, to go nowhere. He missed his boat and the water and the salty spray of the sea on his face.

But there was seldom time for that anymore.

Ada stepped up beside him. "I'm going to do something else I don't often do."

"What? Juggle?"

She met that bad joke with a very droll look. "I'm going to give you another piece of advice."

"Don't eat the yellow snow?"

Again, the droll look.

"Not even a smile? I must be losing my touch."

And then Ada Wong did something he couldn't remember her ever doing, in all the time he'd known her…she touched him. She put her hand on his arm.

It was so surprising that it stole the smart ass remarks right out of his mouth.

"Find someone, anyone, who understands and let it out. If you don't, it will eat at you until you can't remember anything but the smell, the screams, and the taste of fear like copper in your mouth. Find something to help you forget."

He met her eyes and, following her lead, did something he hadn't done in a long; long time…he put the jokes aside and told the truth. "I don't know if I can."

"You can. You haven't swallowed a handful of pills or stared down the wrong end of a gun. You can still come back."

She started to pull her hand back from his arm and he laid his over it. There was a tingle that spread from his fingers to his wrist. And it felt really good to acknowledge it.

He wasn't dead or blind or stupid. Standing this close to Ada was like being within a foot of a white tiger. It was too tempting, too exotic, and too rare an opportunity to pass up trying to touch…even if it meant you lost a hand in the process.

All the women, in all the world, in all the bars, and all the fucking…and he never once felt like he did with his hand over hers. This was what he'd been searching for…attraction; the thick, choking, burning kind that bred thoughts of tongues and teeth and sin. He tested that feeling by tracing his thumb under that hand and skimming her palm.

And she let him.

He lifted his eyes and met hers.

Part of him wanted to check to see if the room had caught fire around him from the heat in that look. He was fascinated by this almost painful attraction to her. It was dangerous and wrong on about twelve levels and as irresistible as a finger full of icing off a perfectly decorated cake. He wanted to dip his finger into Ada and see if she tasted as good as she looked.

He was betting she tasted better.

She studied his face and hers...it was so very controlled. Part of him wanted to tickle her just to see if she'd crack.

The ringing of his phone had her drawing away. It was interesting that it was her who did.

He'd been ready to tell the person to take a backwards flying leap off the first cliff they came to. He'd entertained running his thumb up her wrist and seeing how far he got. But she was quickly retreating.

He picked up the phone and hung it right back up.

"You'll call me if there's anything?" She turned to the door.

"Of course. Ada?"

She paused, met his eyes again. "Yes?"

"Thank you."

"Of course. I generally don't like to work for emotional cripples. It's boring. And I make it a point to never be bored."

She closed the door on his short burst of laughter. There was no way she could have known that that subtle little flirtation had awakened something in him.

For the first time in over a year, he felt like he was no longer blind. He just wondered what he would see now that his eyes were finally open.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Infection

"The taste was addiction, heady and needy and raw. She could think of nothing else and knew only obsession."

NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER  
......

The artist's name was Leliana Whitfield Frye. She was something of a sculptor. Her work was mostly metals and mostly lewd bordering on insect. In fact, most of her pieces looked like roaches in the middle of a series of vaguely disturbing sexual positions. But apparently insect coitus was popular because there was nary a piece that wasn't sold. A former first lady had purchased a piece of Frye's and put it in the White House. It had sparked a revolution of yuppies that wanted a piece of the up and coming "genius".

For the most part, Chris thought it resembled something a bored toddler did with play-dough. Although he was pretty sure the toddler would make it more realistic. He stood beside a rather painfully obvious brunette with more tits than brains displayed rather openly in a low cut green dress.

"It's really…visceral, don't you think?"

With his tongue in his cheek, Chris nodded. Although what he knew about art could abruptly be summed up in the time it took to armpit fart the National Anthem. "Oh very. Clearly this is meant to represent her emotional…" He just couldn't channel enough bullshit to finish the statement.

"Rape!" Cried the woman rather enthusiastically which really is one word that shouldn't be yelled quite so loudly in polite company. He jumped and barely kept himself from chuckling at the curiosity of those around them."Her rape by society and the loss of ideals."

Chris nodded again and cleared his throat to avoid laughing. "Oh of course. Naturally." He swept a scotch and soda off the tray being carried around by a woman dressed in an Eiffel Tower head dress. He was pretty sure the waitresses were all transvestites but he had to admit most of them looked better in a dress than a lot of woman he knew. After all, this was New York, and nothing failed to surprise anyone here.

He'd once gone to a fundraiser hosted by PharmREcon International that had the wait stuff entirely nude. Why? A better question in NYC was: Why not? No one flinched over the odd, the weird, the wild or the unusual. They did, however, dislike the mundane. So the less splash, the less you were enjoyed.

Chris moved toward the sculpture in the center of the room. It was ten feet of twisted bronze and gold. It looked like two snakes and possibly a fat belly spider trying to perform an uncomfortable 69. There was a tasteful water fall around it, highlighting it with lights and sparkling geysers. As he studied it, he realized it reminded him of what the RPD lobby had once looked like.

Feeling an uncomfortable nostalgia, Chris turned a little to head off to find his date.

Then he paused. Because through the sparkling water, he glimpsed the only sculpture in the room worth seeing twice.

She was dressed in shimmery, shiny red. What else? A timeless gown of silk and sin with spaghetti straps and a gathered silk neckline that suggested something wonderful beneath the flimsy fabric. Her hair, cut into a no nonsense but flattering and chic style, was artfully arranged around her flawless face. Her makeup was perfect, smoky and dark, highlighting the eternal mystery of her eyes. And her mouth…her mouth was a red promise of temptation.

She moved toward him, a flirty little smile on those red, red lips.

"And they call me the spy." She teased, with a sly smile. Tongue in cheek seemed to be the flavor of their friendship.

An interesting word, Ada mused as she moved, friendship. Were they? No. Not even remotely. She was an impossible woman to know. And even more impossible to befriend. She rarely let on the truth of her feelings about any one thing. She often flaunted her wiles in a nearly calculating way. She was seldom caught unaware of any attempts to know her or befriend her.

He hadn't tried. But he was interested. It was all over his face. Poker was likely NOT his game. He wore his feelings like some men wore t-shirts. She doubted very much if he cared who knew it.

The dove gray jacket had joined the suit, she noticed. And he managed to look like a gentlemen with polish. It never failed to surprise her that such a gruff and simple man could clean up and somehow fit into the upper crust of New York Society. The socialites of the city that never sleeps were often unforgiving of a man who seemed to lack sophistication and a certain amount of class. Chris Redfield was a lot of things.

He was, by turns, kind and protective. He was generous and loyal and brave. He was possessed of superior sense of humor and somewhat embarrassing addiction to junk food and beer. But sophisticated? Not unless one considered occasionally eating chicken that didn't come in a nugget to be sophistication. But that same devil may care attitude that afforded him a reputation in combat and in friendship, afforded him the ability to exist in a society that thrived on the preexisting notion that the world operated in a pattern of eternal ambivalence.

The motto of the NYC elite was simple: I-don't-give-a-shit.

Somehow, against the odds, Chris Redfield worked within that mindset. He had as much class as Mustang in a line of Maseratis. But he thrived here among the private school and Hamptons going, gala opening sect. Because he, quite simply, did I-don't give-a-shit with flair.

Ada laughed a little and he had to admit, it was a delightful sound. Like everything else about her, it reeked of grace. She was, hands down, the sexiest, classiest, and most fascinating creature he'd ever met.

The slit on her dress was so high he could just glimpsed the lacy top of one thigh high but he just knew, just KNEW, she was wearing a garter belt under that dress. That's what a lady wore. Ada Wong was a lady. With a capital "L". The kind that you opened doors for and opened veins for and gladly let walk all over you in her ice pick heels. How long had she been leading men around by the nose with her long, long fingers?

And would he let her? If she offered him something sly and slick and questing in the dark...would he let her?

He shifted as well because he was uncomfortably aware of the state of his own arousal happening slightly beneath his belt. It had been a long time since he'd managed to get hard without half a bottle of whiskey. Sex, like drinking, had simply become a way to forget. He punished his body at the gym, he punished his body with booze, and he punished his body with sex. It was just another way to try torture the dreams away.

"Mr. Redfield – keep this up and I might assume you're stalking me."

He shifted a little closer to her as a rather obese man attempted to shove through the narrow opening between his body and the sculpture behind him.

Chris put a hand on her arm to shift her out of the way. In the whole of gallery, the fat man had to try to fit through where he couldn't. In a way, it was great, because it meant Chris had the very real opportunity to put a hand on her.

She allowed it, more interested then anything in what game he was about to start playing.

She was good with games. Games were her thing. She'd been playing games for years. Since the dawn of time. In fact, she couldn't remember a time when she wasn't playing games. Part of that had been born in Raccoon City and part of it had been born before. The toss and turn of foster homes, the countless faces, the judgement and what came next. What came next had defined her. It had been one long game of pretending. She was very, very good at it.

And she had to admit, he was physically attractive to her. It had been awhile since she'd pursued a personal relationship with a man. Most of them she found too tedious, too predictable.

There was something…comforting about Chris, this was true. But not tedious. And not really predictable. He'd been a riot of actions and reactions in the last year since China. She'd seen him make rash, dangerous decisions and cold, calculative ones. He was a gauntlet of emotion on any given day.

She found she liked that in a man. And especially in him. She liked that he was impossible to pin down. And so, she did something she normally avoided, she let his hand stay on her arm.

"Of course I have. It's the only way I know how to get a woman interested."

With a charming sense of timing, he plucked a glass of sparkling yellow champagne from the circulating tray and pressed it into her hand.

"So tell me something, Mr. Redfield," She took a long sip of the bubbling sweetness.

"Chris."

Yea, Ada mused, charming in his own way.

"Chris." It was interesting to note the pleasure of his name on his face. He liked her using it. Again, she considered, was he aware that everything he felt was written all over him? She wondered if he'd care. He didn't seem the type to sweat the knowledge that he was easily read. She was betting, if he were to be interrogated, he could clam up with the best of them. Maybe he just didn't bother outside of the job.

Or maybe it had been a long time since he'd felt anything...and he just didn't remember to cover it up anymore.

Maybe.

Yes, she confirmed again, she was interested in him...to a certain degree.

"No wife? No children?" The answer to question was part of the process. He wasn't aware that she was screening him. She had a rigorous process for choosing a potential lover. If he passed, she'd move forward with the promise of it, if he failed – well he'd never be the wiser.

He shrugged, guiding them both comfortably to the edge of the fountain where they could sit and face each other.

"The timing was never right or the woman. And why bother? I've seen what hides in the dark, what lurks there. I've cultivated enemies with what I do. Why bring someone into the world that can be used as leverage? Why bring someone into the world that has to grow up in fear?"

It was a good answer, as far as truth went, a little maudlin perhaps, but honest.

"And if you were, to say, meet the right woman? If such a thing exists."

"Too late now. I'm too old. And too far into it. I have a baby. The BSAA is my baby. A big, fat, ugly, squalling baby that constantly shits itself."

She laughed again and angled her body a little more toward him. It was a very subtle movement but it set off bells in his head. Since he was neither blind, nor stupid, he shifted as well. And his arm brushed against her back.

That was a check on number two in his column. He could pick up on the subtleties of flirtation. So he was big and seemed like a lumbering buffoon but he wasn't. She didn't allow dumb men into her bed. It was too boring. If they were too dumb to sense the intricacy of a woman's intentions, they were too dumb to know how to pleasure one.

"And what about love?"

This was the big question and the most important. She wanted nothing to do with love or feeling. Friendship, of a kind, was ok when it came to lovers. But she didn't want them trying to make eggs and babies in the morning. She didn't want some man standing under her window with a Romeo complex declaring his love to her.

Chris smiled a little and opened his hand. She took it, tilting her head in interest.

He guided her toward the dance floor and smoothly turned her into his arms to waltz. It put another check in his column. A man that could dance was a man that could dance in all places. Why did it surprise her to know he could? He seemed, as always, the type to have two left feet on the dance floor. But he carried himself well here.

Was it necessity? Likely. And she could understand that as well.

In silvery ice pick heels, she was still significantly shorter. This was another plus. She was particularly fond of tall men.

"Love is for romance novels. And starry eyed teenagers."

"Love didn't send you to Africa to find Jill Valentine?"

Curious, he dipped her, spun her out, and brought her back in a smooth and practiced move. "Not the kind of love you seem to be hinting at." And he was quite curious how she knew about that mission. It didn't seem her cup of tea for a light evening read.

"You've never been intimate with her then?"

"Not in a long time. Once or twice, years ago. When we were young. It was fun and harmless. Jill isn't the type of woman you fall in love with."

Ada tilted her head a little, "An interesting statement. Why?"

"She's focused. She's driven. And she's not interested in love."

"...I can certainly understand the type."

Chris laughed a little, amused.

He brought her back from another turn and his hand settled on her back, at the top of her hips. A simple touch but it was enough to spark the beginning of something more.

The song ended and they remained, pressed together, for a long space of time. There were so many things that could pass in a look. Sometimes, it seemed, more than words.

She slid her hand just slightly inside of his jacket, over the smooth silk of that red shirt. It was a very personal touch and signaled more than another woman would by dropping her panties.

He took her arm to guide her over toward the hallway where there was a little more privacy. The sculptures there were just as hideous and the population sparce. He knew he couldn't wait much longer, he had to have a taste of her.

He moved a little off the path into the shadow of the room and she followed. She went easily into his arms now, liking the fit of all that muscle to her slim and sleek form. Her hands slid under the suit jacket and around his back to gauge the steely strength of him. It's what she'd always suspected, not an ounce of fat on him.

One arm wrapped around her, the other cupped the side of her face and he tilted her back, just enough to impress upon her a certain sense of romance. This surprised even as it delighted her. His thumb traced over her red mouth.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to kiss a woman. It filled his belly with warmth that spread from fingers to toes and hair. He owed Ada Wong an enormous thank you for awakening the man long buried in the corpse.

It was delightful to feel again. To want. To feel the rush and press of desire in his head and loins.

One of her hands echoed his, cupping the side of his face, the other grabbed a handful of muscle on his back to hold on because her knees went weak and wobbling. He didn't kiss her, not yet. He kissed down the side of her neck.

He turned her into his body, feeling all those smooth, strong lines of honed feminine grace. She was slim, yes, but sleek and toned like a swimmer or a runner…or a goddess of the hunt. Her arms looped around his back now under his jacket as the kiss slid over her collarbone and his tongue dipped into the hollow of her throat, spilling a sigh from her lips of pure delight.

And he earned major points with her when he said, calmly, even though she could feel the rapid thud of his heart that matched her own. "I could be in trouble here."

Her hands trailed down to his waist and found the inner pants holster there that put his gun at the flat of his back. He was armed. Even here, even amongst the yuppies and the elite, he was armed. Somehow it managed to turn her on even more to know it.

She herself was wearing a belly band complete with a Ruger LCS9. A small, compact 9mm with a seven shot magazine. He'd felt it the moment he pulled her against him. You couldn't see it, somehow she hid it even in such a small dress, but it was there just in case. All she had to do was reach under the slit of her gown and pull it free.

"You look like a vampire that's preparing to feed..Chris."

There it was again...the echo of his name. He liked her saying it. "I'd like to try more of you. Tell me you don't know that."

She felt his excitement, hard and needy, pressed against her belly. "I know that. I believe we're in agreement, Mr. Redfield about where we'd like this to go."

"Let me take you home."

She studied his face, her head spinning from the surge of lust that speared strong and fast into her belly. A part of her wanted nothing more.

But she had enough sense to say. "Mr. Redfield..what kind of woman do you take me for?"

"I'd like to take you for my kind of woman."

"Do I seem the type to belong to a man? If you really think that, you haven't been paying attention."

"Ada...I'm not asking you to own you."

Wasn't he?

She mused, "What are you asking?"

He pressed her back against the wall into the semi darkness. She let him because it felt good to let him. Her hand skimmed his jaw and felt the stubble of three day old beard. "Do you need me to spell it out for you?"

"I like honesty. It's refreshing."

He put his lips to her ear. "I want to be inside you."

She'd asked for the truth. But it didn't stop the flutter of excitement from stealing her breath. And she was delighted to discover she felt the same way.

"I'll think on it."

"Ada...at least let me touch a boob."

She couldn't stop the light laugh. He was utterly uncouth when it suited him. But that, too, was part of his charm.

He was joking of course, completely. But she seemed to consider the idea for a moment. And then she said, "Should I ruin the romance of the moment with hard truth?"

"Are you married?"

"No."

"A lesbian?"

She laughed a little at the idea. "No. I assure you."

"Then how could you ruin this?"

Ada let him nuzzle the pulse point on her wrist and had to admit she liked the feel of him.

"I don't sleep around."

He furrowed his brow at her. "That's ok by me."

"I'm very selective of my lovers."

Chris studied her earnest expression. Again, he thought, that face said nothing. She was beautiful and elusive. He queried, "Am I at least on the roster for selection?"

"Are you laughing at me?"

"No…ok maybe a little. I'm not going to ask you to move in and play house, Ada. Don't worry."

"I don't take just anyone to bed, Christopher. For many reasons."

"Any why's that?"

"Mostly I find men can be clingy and tedious. And boring. And I -."

"Make it a point never to be bored."

"Exactly."

He studied that haughty, beautiful face. So amused. But she was serious. Deadly so it seemed. He moved to taste her mouth and she pressed a finger to his lips.

"That's the first rule. No kissing."

He nipped that finger with his teeth. "And what happens if I break the rules?"

"We end things. No arguments. Second chances."

Chris tilted his head, studying her.

"Do you want to hear the rest of the rules?"

A long moment passed before he answered. "I do."

"Ok. Dinner. Tomorrow. Eight thirty."

"I get to buy you dinner?"

"One of the perks." She stepped out of the circle of his arms.

"Let me take you home tonight. I'll scramble eggs and eat them off your ass."

Ada laughed a little bit. "It's lucky for you I find your sophomoric sense of humor amusing. You can take me to Denouche. And we'll go from there."

His date called his name and caught his attention.

Of course he wasn't standing anyone up by hiding and making out with Ada Wong because his date was his sister.

"Ada...wait, stay."

"Sit? Roll over? Fetch?" Amused, she watched him. He looked so pleasantly guileless and flushed. She enjoyed it. So she added, "Bring a clean bill of health with you."

Surprised, he queried, "On a date?"

"On a date with me, yes."

She was the most curious creature he'd ever met.

Claire came into the hallway in a sparkly black dress with her red hair carefully and somehow wonderfully arranged on her head in a glory of curls and corkscrews.

"There you are." And her smile went to frigid."Ada."

"Claire."

Ada smiled slyly. "Mr. Redfield, we'll discuss this more later." And she passed by Claire to disappear back into the red edge, sex filled promise she'd come from.

"What were you doing over here?"

Chris l aughed at the accusatory tone. "Playing Jenga. What do you think we were doing?"

"It's dark back here. The evil bitch belongs in the dark, " Her eyes narrowed, focused, and turned to angry slits. "Why do you smell like her?"

She got closer, sniffed, sniffed again. "Are you kidding me here!?"

"It's none of your business, Claire."

"Damnit, Chris! Are you stupid? Oh all the women in the world. Ada?! Really? She's probably Rosemary's baby!"

"It was a little heavy petting, kid. Chillax."

"You better not be doing anything. Ever. She's not for you. No. EVER! What is it with that bitch? Does she have diamonds in her vag? You men sure chase her like dogs in heat. First Leon sniffing around and now you. What's wrong with the world?"

Chris laughed again as he escorted her back out to the party.

"She's beautiful and we had a nice moment. Don't get your panties in a twist over it."

"She's malicious. And conniving. And…SMART!"

Now that was just insulting.

Lips pursed, Chris glared at her, "You saying I'm too stupid for her?"

Attempting to recover from the mistake, Claire rushed out, "No. I'm saying she's not your type."

"And what type is that?"

"You know.." She waved her hands in circles, "Chesty…and…short…"

"You were going to say dumb."

"Well if the waitress fits…"

Irritated, he turned away from her. "Sometimes you can be a real bitch, Claire."

"I'm just trying to protect you!"

"I don't need protection! What could I possibly need protection from?"

But his sister was already stalking away. He didn't hear her murmur under her breath, "Yourself...you big softie. She's going to eat you alive."

And him? Well he was looking forward to dinner...and the taste of Ada Wong.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Replication

"What bred and bled and burned was nurtured. And she hungered, seeking only to burn again."

New York, October  
.......

They called her the bitch in red.

It was a name that struck different chords with different people. For some, it meant fear. The kind of fear that stole your breath and robbed your brain of any coherent thought save to flee. For others, it spoke of success. For the bitch in red never left a job unfinished.

To Ada Wong, the bitch in red was one more persona. One more face. One more legend left behind. A role she played to perfection. Her real one? There was no real answer to that question without asking others. And she refused to dwell on it.

Her past was as colorful as any. Stained in red, sure, the blood of her enemies and so forth. She'd carved her way from the bowels to the crown of contentment. She didn't think of the girl in the street anymore.

Or so she told herself.

The loft where she lived was one of many. A dozen, if not more, places she stayed when she needed a place to lay her head. This one was a wide open space, industrial in nature, in the trendy meat packing district of Manhattan. It was steel beams and brick with a shiny stainless steel appliance filled kitchen nook that she never touched. There was a bottle of wine and two bottles of water in her fridge and half a container of mostly eaten egg rolls.

Her bed sat up on a dais off to one side with a wall that was no more than a wood sliding door. It was draped in red and black two thousand dollars' worth of pertasi Italian bedding. A white Italian leather sofa sat in what might have been the living area. But it was nothing more than the couch and a desk with her lap top sitting on it.

She plucked her memo cube up from the nightstand beside her bed, rolled it in her palm, and set it back down.

Her bathroom was as steel and glass, mostly made up of her shower and the small vanity and toilet off to one side. No bath. She loved a nice bath. But the loft wasn't really equipped for that kind of thing.

She checked her lipstick and smudged her smoky eye make up expertly. The underwear she was currently wearing was black, lacey, and sexy without being too much.

Her pert and perfect small breasts were lifted, giving them the look of being full and fabulous. She'd learned to maximize on her slight figure a long time ago. The stomach beneath the breasts was taut, lovely, with a suggestion of muscle beneath the pale flesh. Her arms were the same muscled in a sheerly feminine way. Not too much. The goldilocks of muscles.

The legs went on forever. They were her signature. Her long, gorgeous legs got more compliments than anything else. She adjusted the garters attached to the smoke gray thigh highs she was wearing and moved toward her closet to finish dressing.

In fitting with the theme, she chose black. The dress was oriental in style and shiny black silk with red lotus flowers stenciled into the fabric along the neckline and down the thigh high slit to the floor. She had barely settled it onto her lithe form. The neckline was plunging but tasteful. It highlighted the antique choker that she'd chosen with a flashy red ruby as it's focal point.

The heels were scarlet and strappy, showing her perfectly painted toe nails in the same flashy red. She studied herself with a critical eye, approved, and paused when the buzzer sounded from her door man.

She touched the button, "Yes?"

"Ms. Wong – you have a guest."

"Tony, can you describe him for me?"

"Sure. Um…tall, dark hair…big. Not fat. Like…muscled. Not scary big but you know more Ryan Reynolds in Blade then the Scwarzeneggar. I.D. says Redfield."

The benefits of a gay door man. Always a good description.

"Thanks Tony. You can send him up."

"Happy to."

Interesting. They'd planned to meet at the restaurant. Instead he was showing up here. She should have rebuffed him and stuck to the plan but she was curious as to what his intent was.

So she called for him to enter when he knocked.

"Mr. Redfield- we had an agreement."

He was dressed in clothes far too casual for the restaurant they'd been planning to attend. The shirt was collared, a fantastic shade of blue, and the jacket good brown leather. The shirt made his eyes stand out in sharp relief when he took the sunglasses off and tossed them on her kitchen counter. The jeans were old, looked comfy, and were starting to fray at the pockets and legs. The brown boots scuffed and well loved.

He set the paper sack in his hands on the counter.

Really, she mused, he was nothing of her type at all. Where was the class? Where was the polish that she usually enjoyed?

"I forgot something I should have mentioned yesterday."

Ada waited, patiently.

"I hate fancy restaurants."

He moved toward her and slid the jacket off as he did. He tossed it over the back of her white leather couch.

"And if I happen to be hungry?"

His smile was what really did it. It was a little boy smile that took that face up from rugged to handsome. She enjoyed the smile. "I'm planning to feed you."

The blue t-shirt snuggled those big arms of his in the most tantalizing way. There was a graphic of some symbol in red splashed across it. It was familiar but she was having trouble placing it. "What's on your shirt?"

He grinned a little and executed a half shrug, "You grow up in the Stone Age? That's Optimus Prime...from Transformers."

Transformers?

Surely her date for the evening hadn't shown up wearing a Transformers t-shirt.

Ada Wong was many things, some of things were lies, some were skills, some were games. On a given day, she wasn't even really Ada Wong. That was just another ruse...but she was seldom surprised. Surprise came with knowing she was enjoying her time with a man who courted t-shirts with robotic cartoon characters on them.

What was she thinking? What could they possibly have in common?

He shifted to gather things together and his arms bunched. The jeans he wore were old and faded. They snuggled against his ass as he turned and moved through her loft. And they made things low in her body tighten and excite.

Well...they had THAT in common anyway.

The question needed asked here. And she realized she WANTED to ask it. She was going to go ahead with this after all. "You brought the paperwork?"

Amused, Chris gestured with his head, there was a folder lying on the counter. "I have to admit, it's like I'm applying for NASA or something. I've never had a woman want me to bring a clean bill of health with me to a date."

"I told you, I'm not generally casual about my lovers. I don't take chances."

"I can't argue with that. Disease free, Ada. In black and white. As requested."

"Thank you." She liked that he'd been willing to bring proof. It showed he was serious about being her lover. She was enjoying the unpredictability of him. It amused her and intrigued.

"Sure thing, boss. Anything else I should prepare for among those complicated demands of yours?"

"There are benefits to my complicated demands, Mr. Redfield, I assure you."

"I have no doubt. You look fantastic, Ada." He said it so off hand, so bluntly and simply, that she had to smile.

"Thank you. Should I change?"

"You should. As much as I love that dress on you, this meal calls for comfort."

Comfort. She wondered if she owned something that comfortable. It made her smile as she turned and took the steps to her bedroom area. "I'll just be a minute."

"Take your time."

He prepped the kitchen, delighted to find that her pots and pans looked brand new. The stove had that just bought smell that implied it have never even been turned on. Chris assembled his ingredients and set a red sauce on to boil. He diced onions and garlic, pinched out salt and pepper, added carrots and celery. The smell of cooking tomato and parsley filled the air.

In the Redfield house, you learned how to cook or you starved. His parents had been very clear on being self-sufficient. So he could cook and well. He set the bottle of wine he'd brought out to breathe as he prepped the salad makings. He'd had to learn to cook after his parent's death. Someone had to feed Claire and keep them from dying of hunger.

Claire, conversely, was a terrible cook. She burned everything she made. He'd kept them alive after their parents had died. Claire burned water. She was useless. But she could sew and loved folding laundry. So, they'd traded out household duties.

Ada emerged from her bedroom in her version of relaxed. The yoga pants she wore were skin tight and black and the tiny little white shirt with it was a revelation in the greatness of god. She paused, sniffed, and smiled.

"Is that a Bolognese sauce I smell?"

"That's the rumor."

"And here I thought you'd be the corndog and tater tots kind of man."

"Oh I'm that too." He crossed around with a smile. "Sauce should take about an hour to simmer."

"Well it smells fabulous."

"You smell fabulous." He caught her around the waist and drew her to him. She let him, delighted. It was all so very domestic. This was a game she hadn't played before and she was intrigued.

He put his nose to the back of her ear. "What's that perfume you're wearing?"

"No perfume. Just me."

"It's making my mouth water." His mouth tasted her there at the back of her ear. The skin was supple and sweet. He slid his hands under the tiny shirt she wore, skimming them up her back. She felt the press of the wall against her back and sighed with delight.

He lifted her hands above her head and skimmed his fingers down the long and lean line of muscle. Those fingers trailed over her sides and across the smooth plane of her stomach. His mouth nipped gently at her exposed skin, lifting the shirt inches at a time with each nibble and kiss. His hands bracketed her rib cage, thumbs tracing lazy circles on the skin just below the line of her bra.

Her fingers tunneled into his hair as she watched him tease her. The flush of her skin signaled arousal, her breath fell out in excitement pants. His hands skimmed up the outside of her legs now, over the hips, and around to brush the wonderfully perfect beauty of that sculpted ass. With little more then a shift, he lifted her and set her down on the counter.

Ada let him step in between her legs and take her face. He tilted her back to look up at him. She could feel the vibration of him that was a desire to kiss her. She was surprised to find out she was curious how it would be as well. She hadn't kissed a man in years. The last had been Leon in the bowels of that lab in Raccoon City. He'd thought she was dying. So she'd kissed him.

It had been part of the game. Part of the plan. Mostly.

"No second chances huh?"

With a level of regret that surprised her, she smiled. "None."

He didn't kiss her. He tugged her forward instead and his hands roamed up her back again to flip the clasp of her bra with a practiced blind eye. He peeled it off without taking off her shirt which was another point in his favor.

And then his hands expertly palmed her breasts beneath the shirt. She gasped at each tug, each smooth roll, each pluck of his fingers like a maestro on a finely crafted violin. He ducked his head beneath her shirt and added the wonder of his mouth to it and she was lost. She felt the warmth spread from her throat to her head and to her groin.

Her hands went to his the fly of his jeans and the timer for the sauce began to bleat like an annoying slap in the face.

Chris pulled away from her, settling her shirt down on her. "Sauce is ready."

He moved to the stove and moved the sauce off the hot burner to settle. He was tossing the salad when he felt her move up behind him.

"Hungry?"

She grabbed his arm and turned him, pushing him back against the counter. He was grinning down at her. She hadn't intended to take him to bed this soon. Not exactly.

But the timing felt right here.

And she was drawn to him. She rarely put aside her instincts regarding her needs.

"Yes. I'm hungry." Her hands pushed under his t-shirt and pulled it off him in a smooth, fast movement. She used it to bind his hands in place behind his back for just a moment. And her teeth bit fast, hard, and hungry into the meat of his chest. "Fuck the fucking sauce."

Chris laughed, wicked and low. He picked her up under the arm pits and she wrapped her legs around him. "Yeah – fuck the fucking sauce sounds about right."

He carried her out of the kitchen and tossed her back on the bed. She liked the power of his toss. He was effortless with it. Her weight simply didn't matter to him. Strength - another thing she enjoyed about his body.

She bounced and rolled, coming up to pull her shirt off. He followed her down, pulling the snug little pants from her body. He didn't think he'd ever seen anything more beautiful than Ada Wong in tiny lacy black panties. And he'd seen the sunrise over the Mediterranean and witnessed the world from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. None of it, nothing, was like the sight of her lying there with her arms out stretched to him.

Amusement had her smiling up at him. "What?"

"God damn - you're wonderful."

It was said with such simple truth that she found it might have been the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her.

She started to reach for him again and he slid his hands up her legs, over her hips. It was as if he were sculpting her with his palms.

Curious, she commanded, "Come here."

"Wait. Let me look at you."

The simple denial flattered her endlessly.

This is exactly what she knew he'd be like. This. Not a brute. Not here. No. A lover that was, by turns, smooth and forceful. Just like he was in business.

He pressed his mouth over the beat of her heart and she felt a sliver of panic knife into her. She didn't want that. Not intimacy. His lips shifted and plucked with the same careless pleasure at one breast and her panic slipped away under a tidal wave of desire.

Her skin was pale, nearly translucent, with a tracing of beautiful blue veins beneath the surface. Her nipples peaked and blushed in pretty pink circles. His hands weighed and stroked the delicate spill of her breasts, delighting her. His tongue traced each etch of muscle in her belly and the jut of one perfect hip bone.

The passion of it made her breathless. The tickle of his bearded jaw aroused. He was almost delicate...and it touched and excited.

He leaned up above her, watching her face now as he feathered his fingers over her damp panties. Her eyes blurred, her skin flushed, her lips parted. And Chris breathed, "Beautiful."

Such a powerful man, Ada mused, to make her feel that way with a single word.

They rolled, an endless struggle of lips, tongue, teeth, and hands. She was above, below, on the side. He tasted her, twisted her, tugged at her. On her belly, she shivered as his tongue delved the curve of her spine and his hands stroked her legs while she crested.

He was forceful, in a way she enjoyed, touching her in a way that spoke of possession edged in greed. She liked that. In the bedroom, she liked to occasionally allow her lovers to dominate her. Never to the point that she was without power, because there was a power in submission as well, but enough to show her their need of her. He was incredible.

And she was pleased to have taken him to her bed.

His body enthralled her. He was scarred and strong. The roping muscle of his arms spilled into a dense expanse of chest. He wasn't a boy, not a smooth young thing, so the spill of his chest was softened with enough hair to tantalize her fingers and the questing spill of her tongue. She liked the taste of him, salty and somehow sweet. His nipples were sensitive which pleased her as well.

He let her lave her tongue on his chest as he knelt in the center of her bed. The jeans rode low on his hips, unzipped but clinging, a perfect denim frame to the picture of his body. She teased at the line of hair below his belly button and licked at his hip, drawing his skin between her teeth to sample him.

Chris hissed and speared his fingers into the spill of her hair. She liked that too. The jerk of him felt uncontrollable and excited. She pleased herself by suckling until his skin bloomed with blood and formed a brilliant hickey. Marked.

It thrilled her.

Ada slid up his body and his hands slid down her back to cup the perfection of her ass in that black thong. She nestled in against him, breasts tight to his chest. And he rubbed her there. He rubbed her against his front.

It stole her breath. Her hands clasped his face without prompting and she trembled.

His face shifted, his eyes hooded, and he grinned. Cheshire cat. Devil. It aroused and burned. He breathed, against her mouth, "Like that?"

Ada laughed, richly, darkly. "Don't get cocky, Mr. Redfield. Not yet."

He arched one thick brow and took her hand. His gaze didn't shift. It held. It held hers as he slid her hand down his stomach and into his pants. The move was entirely possessive. It was a little domineering.

She allowed it.

Because she wanted to touch him. And because she liked his aggression here, in the bed, against her body. She liked his dominance enough to embrace the idea of making him her lover without compunction or regret.

Her nails slid over his groin. His breath fell out in a grunt of approval, and her fingers closed around him.

And he was big there too. He was big all over. And that pleased her as well.

She laughed, delighted, and inflamed her greed of him. Her free hand gripped into his hair and held, hard. "I see why you're cocky."

Chris chuckled, managing somehow to look sheepish while still being arrogant.

She played lazily with his body, to both of their pleasure. She wasn't trying to do anything but discover him. The shape and spill and length of him excited her. He was slick and smooth and velvety. She watched his face as she stroked him. He stroked her back, her thighs, her ass - but he held that look while she touched him.

And she loved that. She loved it. He was so forthright. Heart on the sleeve in his feelings played well in the bedroom. The want of her fairly rolled off him. He let her smell, touch, sift and drift through his excitement for her. She coveted that kind of sexual surrender.

A strong man laid bare to her. A forceful but submissive lover when it suited.

She was ready to find out the rest.

As if sensing it, Chris caught her arms and tossed her back on the bed.

Ada bounced, eagerly, and let him slide her panties down her legs. He put one hand on her collarbone as if to hold her down, surprising her with the force of it, and the other slid between her legs. His fingers quested over the slickness of her body, testing. When he found her ready, he stole her breath.

Because he didn't delicately touch her.

No.

He skimmed his thumb up through her dewy folds, stroked the throbbing bud of her excitement, and assaulted her. She gasped, bucking, as he thrust two fingers into her in a rhythm that was merciless and shocking. Her hands flew up and gripped his forearm. One remained there and the other grabbed his face in surprise as he fingered her deep, fast, and fluidly. The heat of her sucked his digits in, slicked, and opened for him. Her body hadn't been quite ready for the invasion but it embraced it, lubricating itself with excitement for each thrust.

The shock of it drove her mouth open on a sharp cry, "Oh god..."

Chris laughed with crude pleasure, watching her face as he touched her.

Ada's thighs opened, inviting his hand to wedge and nestle against the heat of her, and he did so with a possessive shift between her legs. The sound that exited her mouth was a whine of want. His thumb traced her parted lips to feel it.

Ada was surprised that such a crude assault was going to bring her to orgasm. It turned out the flesh craved something different than the soul. His lovemaking was nearly brutal. It wasn't gentle or giving. It was demanding. The man who commanded on the battlefield, did the same in the bedroom.

And his voice did as well as he intoned, low and hard, "Come for me, Ada. I want to see you come for me."

Her body liked the filthy demand of that. Her mouthed opened, her back bowed, and she tightened around his digits with it. Chris' pleasure was evident. She had come on command for him. He was enthralled with her. He knew that. Her body sucked his fingers in to hold them as she gave in, bucking a little with the release of it.

When she was slick and wet and gasping, his hand retreated and his mouth replaced it.

He had his answer: she tasted as good as she looked.

Yes, she thought desperately, he was the right kind of lover after all.

Brutally tender. Harshly greedy. Punishingly perfect.

She'd made the right choice here.

His tongue plunged and pushed her full of pleasure that left her mewling beneath him.

Finally, when she felt like she couldn't take another moment of waiting for him, she pushed his jeans off his body and shoved him to his back. He let her, slick and needy with sweat. Ada straddled him and grabbed his wrists. She rolled his fingers around the headboard and braced him there.

The thrill of that spilled out of his mouth on a sharp, hoarse laugh.

Ada breathed and commanded him now, "Don't touch me. Unless I say so. Say yes."

No hesitance. Acceptance. "Yes."

He expected her to demand a condom. She didn't. And it rocked him in places that made him insane.

She didn't wait. Her hands shifted, her hips lifted, and she impaled herself on him.

She mounted him, her hands questing over his quivering flesh. I want to be inside you, he'd said, and so he was, buried inside her as she took him with her on a furious and fervent ride. She rocked her hips as she moved, a lithe and graceful thing, fluid like a ballerina in her movement above her.

The wet of her nearly blinded him as she sank down and took him.

Ada watched him tighten, felt him echo the roll of her body on him, and he held on. He let her ride and rock and use him.

Yes, a good choice. The right choice.

She was a harsh mistress. She commanded and demanded and denied him the right to touch her. She rose and rode and he worshiped her where he lay beneath her. The wet ride was fragrant, virulent, and auditory. There was music in each slap of skin, each note of completion.

When they were both sweating and desperate, she commanded, "Let go. Take me."

And then he surprised her again. Because he answered the command with a question, "How?"

Her body thrilled and she answered, hoarse, "Hard. Fast."

He did. Just like that.

She shivered. Chris wrapped an arm around her and sat up, pulling her sweaty flesh to his. Without thinking, his mouth turned toward hers. Ada deflected it, shifting her face away. He let the sting of surprised rejection spur him on as he all but threw her onto her back and plowed himself into her.

It wasn't gentle now or sweet; it was almost painfully fast. He smashed his body into her like he was trying to come out the other side. Primal and pure, it stole the breath, sparked the flesh, and fed the beast that raged between them for more.

The orgasm ripped a cry from her throat that he echoed, thrusting twice more as her body seized around him and fell into spasms. Chris gripped her throat, angled her hips, and plowed her belly like he'd plant his seed there and posses her. Brutal indeed.

Ada bowed, bucked, and he punished them both for the want of it. He savagely topped her, supremely took her, and followed her down into the gold edge abyss with a grunt as he pumped her full of his release. It shimmered around them and slipped sweaty and sweet into the skin to release the tension.

Chris collapsed atop her, breathing heavy and hard. "...holy shit…" He panted it, gasping a little.

Ada laughed, the sound muffled by his sweaty shoulder in her face. "A good choice of words...Now I'm ready for the fucking sauce."

He lifted his head and met her gaze. And laughed.

His laughter delighted her. And she had to admit, it was the first time she'd laughed with any man she'd taken to bed. It reinforced what she knew; she'd made the right choice in him as a lover.

And she was excited to see what would happen next.

Neither was willing to notice that they were still sealed together...and making no effort to change it.

POGIBEL, RURAL RUSSIA, OCTOBER

The rapid thunder of tires over gravel filled the cool Moscow night. The first suggestion of snow was on the chilly air, promising a hard fall for the natives and a brutal winter to follow.

Various people scattered the ground in a semi-circle as the all-terrain vehicle rolled to a stop in front of them. Most of them were obscured by cold weather gear. Only the piercing blue eyes of one could be seen in conjunction with the rest of the ensemble.

A few words in fluent Russian were spared between the driver and the armed man awaiting him. A hand raised and waived the driver through the raggedy steel gate before him. Steely eyed, he rolled the vehicle through the check point.

The other side of the gate was a testament to poverty. It was empty, bereft, and devoid of anything but a few old cans of cola and a distant memory of life. There was no reason, on the surface, for a team of armed men to be standing guard on it. No reason that a tower should stand tall and straight and staffed in the distance. No reason that the door of the one decrepit building inside the steel gates should be standing open and waiting.

From within the building a lab coat emerged. Young, she still had a shine in her eyes that spoke of youth and naiveté. She waived eagerly to the driver to bring the vehicle to a slow stop.

A few other lab coats emerged from the building as the back of the truck opened and boxes were exposed to the night. The boxes were unlabeled, unmarked, and as boring as any generic brown cardboard ever was.

There was no reason for anyone to assume what was inside those boxes was capable of destroying the world. None.

Scientist's began carrying the boxes beyond the open grey door of the building. A brief exchange occurred between driver and scientist. Money traded hands and the driver climbed back into his truck and drove back the way he came.

There really was no reason to assume anything out of the ordinary. It was all very common. It was all very droll. Just a delivery to a building. Just a drop off of chemicals to a lab for experimentation.

Just the beginning…of an outbreak.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Penetration

"The pain bred beginning, blessing even as it robbed. She made a soundless plea for the sweet torture to go on forever."  
.....

New York, October  
...

In the middle of the night, she watched him sleep. The curl of smoke from her perfect lips highlighted the smooth line of her brow. She made a picture, curled like a cat in her white leather chair, her long legs draped lazily over the arm, her perfect breasts shadowed by the line filtered light obscured by the clouds outside of the wide open doors to her terrace.

The eternal mystery of him would never fail to surprise her. Even now, in repose, with sheets wrapped lazily around one leg and hip, the other left beautifully bare and naked...he was never really resting. It was more like a lion, sleeping but alert, ready to spring to defend or devour. The muscles in his back were fluid where he sprawled on his belly. He was painted with scars in a way that spoke of battle and survival.

He wasn't exactly handsome. There was slant of nose or a spill of jaw that was too masculine for that. The body was above reproach, clearly, all muscle and dedication. She couldn't pinch a single piece of fat on him anywhere. This pleased her as she liked her lover's fit.

She was also wise enough to know that she could play him here, now, and forever. Now that he'd shared her bed, she could rule him. Any woman worth her salt knew how to win a man and control him. Chris Redfield was fascinating, volatile, and emotionally messy...yes. But he could be owned as any man, given the right incentive.

Hadn't she been playing Leon Kennedy for years? And he was light years more clever about the game they were playing.

Redfield wasn't playing any games with her. She wasn't sure how she was sure of that, but she was. He was just here. Just with her. Just enjoying her. She could twist the knife and kill him with careful kindness. She could own him with her passion and her pussy and her playful wit. He simply didn't seem the type to stop her. He was so eagerly open about everything he felt.

She could destroy him and make him her puppet. He was NO Albert Wesker.

She could rule the BSAA through him if she pushed hard enough. He was such a fragile thing. He was searching for something. She could take the advantage here and OWN him.

What was it that held her back from that?

A year ago, the promise of ruling through a figurehead like Chris Redfield would have appealed to her.

But she found she didn't WANT to betray him...and it was an interesting feeling indeed.

She couldn't help but remember the moment she'd decided to turn aside from her own game, just a for a moment, and begin to play his.  
.....  
Island, Off the Coast of China, June -2013

One Year Prior...  
.....

The sound of the waves in his ears soothed him. The sweet scent of sand and summer sun, the pleasing aroma the wind in the trees that danced with coconuts, and the promise of a castaway on an island created to give life to literary forays into adventure…these things made the beach on which he lay feel so peaceful, so dreamlike…that he almost forgot why he was there.

He almost forgot why he was alive…and his partner wasn't.

Making a small sound of pain, Chris Redfield opened his eyes to the coastline of some spit of land in the middle of nowhere. The first sound that came from his mouth was a small whine of pain. But it wasn't the pain that comes from having your ass kicked, although that was in there somewhere, it was the pain of knowing what was lost.

How many times was it his fate to survive when he lost everyone around him?

How many times was he meant to the last man standing?

Coughing up water, he rolled to his back to stare up at the cloudless sky above him. A pretty view, no doubt about that, if there was a willing woman jumping on his dick it would be a better moment too. Who was he kidding? The last thing he wanted was a good fuck.

He was already fucked. He'd let the kid die down there. He'd led him first into that goddamn mess in Waiyip and gotten the rest of his unit assassinated out of rage and stupidity…and now this. THIS. The last fucking person to have believed in his useless ass was dead. Obliterated. Blown up after having turned into the very thing they'd been trying to destroy.

For the BSAA, Piers had vowed as he'd pushed him into that pod, I'm doing it for what I believe. You're my Captain. And the world needs Chris Redfield.

Jill, in his ear as she'd pulled him from the clutches of that monster in the Spencer Estate, moments before she'd taken Albert Wesker out the window to save him…the world needs Chris Redfield.

The world needs Chris Redfield.

His fucking heart hurt.

Why?

The world needed a useless drunk?! The world needed a fuck up? A failure? A pathetic mess? What kind of world needed that!?

What kind of world needed a joke? He was a disgrace. A shadow of his former self. A fool. A dumb bastard that couldn't even properly heal his own pain to keep doing that one damn thing he'd promised to do: go down fighting.

But Piers had.

Piers had died fighting for him.

And now he was the last man alive, lying the sand, mourning a boy that had been like a brother…or a son.

The pain of that echoed.

He'd never stopped to think about children. Not in years. Not since Jill had refuted his marriage proposal after Raccoon City and they'd dedicated themselves to the fight. They'd lost each other in the fray of it, the relationship had died a peaceful death, and the fight had taken over as their only real passion.

But children were not something one risked in their line of work.

So the fatherly love he felt for Piers annoyed him.

The kid wasn't young enough to be a son to him anyway. Yeah, he was older. But he wasn't THAT FUCKING OLD. Chris stopped to think about the age difference.

He was kinda afraid he was wrong about that. He was half sure he was TWICE AS OLD as Piers had been. Lord.

It was TIME TO RETIRE.

But he'd made a vow to that kid to keep going.

He had to honor that.

He didn't want to get up off the beach.

A rustle of leaves disturbed his maudlin reflection and Chris rolled without thinking. It was training, skill, and instinct that had him on one knee with his pistol pointed at the face that waited in the tree line for him.

A bird cawed happily somewhere behind her.

But she was DEAD.

The gun went off, the woman dove to avoid it, and he tracked her as she moved.

He shouted, loud and commanding, "You BITCH! I don't know how the hell you survived that fall. I don't care! I'm gonna watch you die choking on your own blood!"

From behind a tree, the soft sound of her voice echoed, "Mr. Redfield – perhaps we should try a different foot to start off on here. I'm Ada Wong."

"I know who the hell you are!"

"No. I'm afraid you don't. You are, I'm sure, acquainted with Carla Radames. She wore my face it seems, but didn't possess my brains. She was a dumb shadow of me, I assure you. And a heartless bitch. I can claim, of course, to be a bitch and often quite heartless…but I'm not responsible for her actions any more than you are."

Chris rose to his feet, considering. She was still behind the tree. It would be easy enough to kill her the moment she emerged. But she hadn't offered him violence.

In fact, she'd stood there looking at him before he'd shot with her hands UP. She'd been showing herself unarmed.

Chris, breathing hard and slow, inquired, "I'm just supposed to trust you?"

"Of course not. But you did see her die, correct? Unfortunately, she didn't. Her body simply transformed. I covered you to be sure you escaped, for which you're welcome."

He said nothing.

Ada continued, "But I made sure doubly sure she was eradicated before I torched the ship and the lab and the lies she'd brought with her. I'm afraid I stole your revenge, but I'll make my mea culpas by saying I deserved a bit of revenge myself…she did, after all, steal my identity and make quite a mess in my name."

Chris waited, breathing in and out. It would be easy enough to validate what she was saying. So, he lowered the gun and called back, "Come out. I won't shoot you."

"Very considerate of you." The tone was mocking. It was a little amused. It was dry and sarcastic.

The moment her face appeared, he wanted to blow her away.

That goddamn face of hers had haunted him for so long. The betrayal. The rage. It stole his breath. He dropped the gun into the sand to be sure he wouldn't shoot her without meaning to.

Ada approached him, carefully. She wore red; a smooth red shirt, a pair of clinging leather pants. There was something different about her then the woman who'd died on that ship. What was it?

Ada answered the question for him. "If Carla had really been me, Mr. Redfield, she wouldn't have gotten caught."

The second the gun hit the sand, she moved closer to him. She had something in her hand. He backed up and she stopped, tilting her head.

"It's gauze. You're bleeding."

She held out the gauze and he took it, watching her like a hawk. She remained motionless, harmless, if a snake in the grass could be harmless.

He pressed the gauze above his right eye, stopping the bleeding there.

Ada mused, "You can contact anyone you want to verify. But Simmons is done. Birkin and Muller were retrieved. Leon Kennedy and his partner are safe. The world is right again."

Chris laughed, harshly. "Yeah? My partner is dead. My team died in China chasing your doppelganger. Right again? I'd say the world is shit, lady. No question about that."

Ada smirked a little, amused. "So it would seem. Although I think you don't give your partner any credit."

Chris felt his chest hitch, hard. "What are you talking about?"

"I came upon him before the lab exploded. He was mostly dead, yes, and the virus effects may not be reversible…but he's alive. I managed to get him onto the escape pod that remained before the final explosion."

Chris felt the thunder of his pulse in his ears, "He's alive?"

"He's alive. And currently enroute to a hospital in Beijing with a contingent of your men."

Their gazes held in the sunny heat. She told him an impossible story. It started in Tall Oaks. It ended in Lanshiang. And finished on this beach.

Would he ever be able to look at her and not see the horrible woman that had once held her face?

She'd saved Piers. She'd come here to save him. She'd saved Leon Kennedy. She'd finished the woman who'd killed in her name and ruined her reputation. She'd taken care of Simmons. She was a bad guy…? Was she?

Did a bad guy save the day?

Chris queried, quietly, "What do you want from me?"

Ada studied him, curious about the hatred still flickering around him. For her? Or himself? "Nothing. Save that you clear my name and free me from the shackles of her stupidity. My reputation is worth dying for."

Curious, he watched her eyes. "You're a spy, Ada. What kind of reputation do you think you have?"

"Maybe I'm underhanded, Mr. Redfield. But I'm not without conscience. I don't kill for sport. I don't kill at all if I can avoid it. And I don't serve Albert Wesker, his son, or his purpose…I never did. I played his game. But I did it for my own reasons. And I don't hurt people around me that don't deserve it. Not if I can avoid it. A spy I might be, yes, but not a killer. I won't let the world see me like that. That bitch doesn't get to die and take my reputation with her. I've worked too hard to make a name for myself in the right circles, I won't see that destroyed because Simmons had a crush."

They remained facing each other in the salty sea air.

Finally, he remarked, "Who do you work for, Ada?"

With a small laugh, Ada shrugged a shoulder, "Whomever I want. Currently? I'm freelance."

The gauze was soaked through. The blood spilled into his eye and had him cursing a little. He went very still when her hands touched his face and wiped at his skin.

He let her, watching her controlled expression.

And his voice said, "I want you to come work for me."

Amused, Ada released his face. He pressed the fresh gauze to his weeping head laceration. They held gazes, one amused, one dead serious.

Finally, Ada drawled, "I don't think that would be a good fit, Mr. Redfield. Your face says you hate me."

"….not you. Not you." He turned, sighing. "Not you."

"Yes. Not me. But me." She waited, watching the struggle on him. A big man, she mused, and often touted amongst their world as a handful of things: dedicated, resourceful, skilled, professional. And lately? A mess. A disgrace.

She found herself intrigued that he would offer.

It surely cost him something to offer to work with a woman he clearly despised. Again, not HER, not exactly. But her face. He was a fascinating thing, to be sure.

Ada mused, "Convince me."

Chris turned, meeting her eyes, "What?"

"Convince me. They say you are a ruthless force. Convince me. Why should I work for you?"

There were a lot of things he could have said. A thousand. A million. A gazillion ways he could have won her.

He went for the jugular with a single phrase and defeated her where she stood. "Because I'm not Albert Wesker. And I may be the only person on Earth who hated him more than you."

Ruthless indeed. And maybe a mess, Ada mused, but also a man. Just a man, trying to make a difference. She didn't care about altruism, not on a given day, not usually…but she cared about dedication. And he was dedicated to what he did.

So she was interested to find she respected him.

And at the end of the day? The enemy of her enemy was her friend. Working WITH Chris Redfield would afford her opportunities that working behind the scenes didn't. Business wise, it was a good move to work beside him. It would allow her to move in legitimate circles without fear of exposure or censure. It would grant her the ability to keep the US Government at bay about her dealings. She wasn't opposed to dealing her cards in the dark, but playing them in the open was so much better. It meant she didn't have to watch her ass quite as diligently.

Ada finally answered him, quietly, "I accept…on a conditional basis and under the guiding premise that I may, without notice, quit being your ally."

Chris laughed now. The first laugh he'd had in so long. He just laughed and felt a little better. "Agreed. You saved Piers, Ada. And me. And by extension, my company. With the exception of murdering a bus load of school kids, I can't think of anything I won't let you do at your own behest and of your own free will here. I'm a fucking mess, Ada, but I'm a good man to work for I promise you that."

"With."

His gaze turned form the horizon to her face.

She said it again, quietly, "With, Mr. Redfield. A good man to work – with."

And so it began, the start of a very interesting partnership.  
.....

New York, August -2013  
.....

The sounds of rage spilled up and down the narrow hallway. It chased a crying girl from the room in a clatter of breaking furniture and curse words so filthy they singed the ears.

Curious, Claire Redfield watched the fleeing girl in the maroon scrubs with interest.

She'd come to see the recovering partner that had helped her brother survive beneath the ocean. She'd felt like it was something a good sister did. She knew Chris came to visit twice a week when his schedule allowed. She knew the partner, Piers Nivans, was progressing through his rehabilitation well and often tried harder on days when Chris would visit.

She knew, also, that he was resistant to suggestions about leaving the facility. His deformity prevented him from being willing to look in mirrors or brave the world beyond the hospital. He needed a firm hand to guide him.

He needed a Redfield kick in the ass.

Chris was babying him. It was the wrong tactic.

So sometimes it took a woman to do a man's job.

She eased open the door to the physical therapy gym. The place was wreck. Nivans had through balls and broken shelves with weights. He'd kicked over a row of benches and was currently trying to over turn the therapy pool.

To stop him, Claire mused loudly, "Wanna tell me what good it would do to flood the gym?"

He stopped, panting hard, and turned to face her.

It was worse than they'd let on.

They'd reffered to his form as traumatized.

He wasn't. He was worse. He was a fucking mess.

His bio picture had shown a man so handsome that he was nearly painfully pretty; young, eager, and beautiful in that way that reminded her of Leon when he was young. Piers had that sharp intelligence and careless good nature that made his gorgeous face shine. It was nowhere on the defeated man before her.

The body was still in excellent shape. He was tall, muscled, and mostly naked save for the pants he wore low on his hips. But the damage from the virus that had ravaged unchecked through his body was obvious. The arm that had converted was still covered in scales and scars. The hand at the end of the arm was weak, they said, and couldn't even hold a cup. He had it curled up and under as it were hurting.

From the wrist to the elbow, the skin was ravaged in scars and shiny webbed scales like a fish. It tracked across his upper chest and collarbone, ending in an almost pretty lacy web of marks on his neck. All of that marked him as a warrior. It wasn't so bad.

Not really.

The face was bad.

It was really bad.

He was half model beautiful, half melted nightmare.

His face was almost running candle wax on one side. The pretty eye on the good side of his face was mirrored by a red veined, filmy, angry brother in the ruined one. There was blood circling the iris that told the story of intense trauma to the face. It looked like someone had dripped oil down just one side of that lovely expression.

The skin was boiled, red, inflamed and puckered. The lips curled a little from the scarring, showing a nice set of white teeth beyond. Claire eyed him without a single thing on her face.

No pity. No sorrow. Nothing.

Although she felt both.

But neither would help him now.

Instead, she walked into the room. "I'd heard you a good patient, even friendly. Not seeing the good part here. You wanna talk about what's making you so mad?"

Piers snorted and spun away. "Like you care? I don't need some little nurse coming in here to stop me. Go away and leave me alone."

Claire stuck a hand on her hip, watching him. "Not a nurse, thank god for that, as I don't do well wiping asses. And I don't do well wiping boogers off boohoo babies either. What are you sniveling about in here? You're alive, aren't you? You'd rather be dead than fucked up? That's just stupid."

Piers spun back now and the rage on his face was legion. She liked it. It showed he wasn't completely lost. The rage was GOOD. The rage was ALIVE.

"Who the fuck do you think you are, lady!? I ask your opinion on my problems? Get the hell out of here!"

"Turns out your problems are kinda mine too, angry guy. Since you're in them because of my brother."

He stopped and turned back, panting, face dawning now from rage to horror.

"Oh yeah. That's right. I'm Claire Redfield. Chris' sister."

Piers made a small sound of regret. "I'm sorry. So sorry. I didn't know. Just…don't tell him ok? Don't tell him about this."

Interesting.

Why was he afraid of that?

Claire moved to help him as he went to start straightening the gym. "Ok. You want to tell me why it matters so much that I don't?"

Piers shook his head, using his good hand to right the fallen shelf. She noticed he kept the bad one pressed to his chest. "I don't want him to blame himself. It's not his fault. Any of it. I know he comes by out of guilt. I know he hangs around out of loyalty or misplaced regret…or something. I just…I don't want him to think I'm struggling. It will make it worse for him."

Claire felt something shift in her chest a little. He'd died trying to save his Captain. The eager puppy he'd been had followed Chris like a little brother to a hero. He'd sacrificed himself…and survived. And now his hero was coming to sit by his bedside and make him feel like his sacrifice had been for nothing.

He felt like Chris was visiting him out of guilt.

It broke her heart to know it.

He didn't know Chris at all. Guilt wasn't his motivator here. Loyalty? Yeah. It was loyalty. But if he was coming to visit this kid twice a week unprompted, it was also devotion. And love.

Love.

And not the kind that had pity behind it.

How to explain to the kid the level of love in Chris Redfield?

Claire mused, quietly, "When my parents died, I couldn't get out of bed for three days. Chris was barely grown himself. A baby really, looking back on it, young and scared. He didn't get to grieve because I stole that from him. I fell apart, badly, and he had to put me back to gether. Sometimes…"

She sat down beside Piers on the bench they righted together. He was watching her now, so quietly, "Sometimes he had to put me in the shower when I'd be too drunk to do it myself. I started drinking really bad after they died. And I was bad about it. I was twelve, angry, and looking for somebody to blame. Chris was eighteen and fighting so hard to keep me when DFS wanted to put me in a home…"

She shifted, remembering, "I stole booze from gas stations. I robbed my friend's parent's fridges. I started getting hammered nightly. If DFS found out, I knew I was done. They'd take me from Chris. He never…he didn't push me. He just kept picking me up. One night…I came in so wasted, throwing up and crying. He held my hair and cleaned me up off the floor. He put me to bed. And he could have yelled. He could have smacked me or let DFS take me, god knew I deserved it. I was a fucking mess. My parent's, wherever they were, were ashamed of me."

Claire shifted to meet his gaze now. Piers held it, unflagging. She liked the interest on his face. It was engaging. And there was no pity. Just understanding.

Claire intoned, "He didn't do any of those things, Piers. He cleaned me up, got me dressed, and put his arm around me. I struggled, afraid of that kind of comfort, and he just kept holding on. He didn't let go. Even when I started sobbing and shaking. He kept on holding on. Humming this song my mother sang to us when we were little and scared. He kept holding on."

She shifted, feeling the spark of tears in the memory of it. In one hand, a good memory. It had been the moment they'd bonded together. The age difference had been hard for them growing up. Chris had always been kind of a disaster. A trouble maker, arrogant and rude and disrespectful. She'd been a good girl to counteract his legacy of making a mess.

When their parents had died, he'd stepped up and became the best thing in the world to her. The bond had shifted, grown, and clung. They were now inextricably linked, more than brother and sister, he'd finished raising her. He'd paid for her college, bought her the first box of tampons she'd ever needed, held her when the first boy she'd ever loved had dumped her. He'd come across the world to save her, she'd run into Raccoon City to save him.

He was her brother, her best friend, her hero. She understood Piers feelings about him. The worship, the love, the need to earn his affection and his respect. She was still doing it. All these years later, she was still trying to atone for being a fucking asshole after their parents had died.

And she finished her statement to the boy that needed hope now, like she'd needed hope all those years ago….and found it in her brother. "He sticks, Piers. When he loves you? He sticks."

Piers shifted a little, red faced now with embarrassment.

Claire touched his arm and stole his breath. He tried to find any kind of pity on her face and saw nothing but kindness. He noted that they had the same eyes. Her and his Captain? The same eyes.

And the same kindness in both sets.

Claire avowed, softly, "You saved his life. And now he comes to sit beside you while you're healing. Maybe it's not perfect…but it's love, Piers. It's love. The kind that comes from a man who never asked me for a damn thing after my parent's died. Not a damn thing. And kept right on holding on even when I couldn't."

Piers felt something in his throat that scared him. He felt the squeeze of a single tear from his ruined eye and wanted to panic. But she was so calm. So calm.

And then she whispered, "It's ok. It's OK. Feel it. That's how this gets better. It's how you get better…and how you give that love back to him without him ever really knowing."

The small sob cleared his throat and made her lean a little closer. His hand lifted and laid over hers…his bad one. And it touched her to feel it.

They sat together while he wept, softly, so softly, and silently shared the love of the man who'd saved both their lives…and never let go.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Maturation

"Gasping, grasping, guileless and lost – she plummeted. And reveled in each helpless breath."

New York, November  
......

The mountains of paperwork that came with a failed field operation were endless. Chris figured, dejectedly, he'd be sitting at his desk until he was old and gray and wizened. He glanced up from his desk to see his reflection in the window across from him.

So maybe he was already old and gray…a little. But he wasn't wizened. Not yet anyway. Maybe he was a little wrinkly. But he'd earned every one of them. He was forty fucking years old…what was he supposed to look like?

The scattering of pictures on his desk answered that question.

Leon Kennedy's perfect face stared up at him from eight different angles. Apparently, the failed mission operative felt the need to snap selfies with the director of the DSO instead of taking pictures of the mess she'd made. Kennedy was what? Five years younger than him? And yet the fucking guy looked the same as he had the first time they'd met after Rockfort Island. Good genes, better grooming, and the right kind of luck apparently.

Leon Kennedy didn't look old.

Chris turned his eyes to the other person in the photos. Ada.

Ada and Kennedy standing side by side against the backdrop of the mess of an outbreak gone wrong in Bangladesh. Ada – looking perfect and unruffled and lovely and timeless. And Kennedy looking like a million bucks in designer boots.

Annoyed, Chris shoved the photos aside.

The little niggle of jealousy surprised him. He wasn't a man given to it. And he wasn't even sure that anything was happening there between them anyway. The rumors suggested they'd been dancing for over a decade, sure. But rumors also said that Albert Wesker had been sleeping with her too.

So, the rumors weren't always true.

He wasn't sure about Kennedy. Leon was a ladies man. He was known to throw it down and leave them happy. Chris wasn't 100% sure that he and Ada hadn't been sleeping together. But he was sure about Wesker.

She'd never outright said they weren't but something in him was sure of it. Wesker was a lot of things, but he didn't diddle those he considered his "underlings" and he didn't stick it to his co-workers either. Excella Gionne had tried and failed. And Chris knew Jill hadn't been touched by him that way either the whole time she'd been in his control. Wesker didn't fuck the help. Ada didn't usually either, so he knew it was a step way outside of her comfort zone that she was currently sleeping with Chris at all.

But he didn't like the jealousy about Kennedy. He didn't like jealousy at all. It was a stupid, baseless, emotion. But there it was anyway.

There was a brief little knock on the door and his gaze turned to see his sister in the doorway.

She had on a little camel hair colored coat and a sloppy red ponytail and carried a pie in one hand. She grinned a little. "You realize it's Thanksgiving, big guy?"

Nope.

He'd forgotten.

Amused, Chris shrugged a little. "Guilty. Forgot. You bring me pie?"

"Looks that way." She stepped into the office and laid the pie on his desk. "It's a bribe."

Laughing, he leaned back in his chair to look at her.

She liked the look of him in this office. He reminded her of their Dad. The half suit he wore was flattering. It was navy slacks and a baby blue shirt rolled up his forearms and missing the tie. The jacket was carelessly tossed over the back of his chair. It made his eyes kind of startlingly blue in the setting sun beyond the wall of windows behind him.

Yeah, Claire mused, just like their Dad. It was insane how much he was the twin of their patriarch. The red hair she claimed came from him too but Chris had their mother's dark Hungarian looks.

If you took their father's face and threw their mother's hair and eyes on it, you had Chris. It was crazy. But most days? It was also comforting.

"What's the bribe, kid? You kill somebody and need an alibi?"

Claire chuckled and perched a hip on the desk. "Nope. I'm taking an impromptu Turkey Day dinner up to Piers at the hospital. I hoped I could snag you as my partner in crime."

No hesitation, he just said, "You bet. I was thinking of doing that anyway. Of course, I was gonna bring him a bucket of KFC."

Claire kept her face deadpan, "Christopher….it's Thanksgiving. You can't bring the guy fried chicken. TURKEY. Not chicken."

"C-Bear. It's all white meat. What dif?"

"It's Thanksgiving, Christopher. You can't bring the guy a bucket of lard and clogged arteries.."

"Why? Is that foul? Is it foul to bring the wrong fowl?"

Claire kept her face droll.

Chris grinned a little and waited for her to crack.

It didn't take long.

She snorted and rolled her eyes, chuckled, and rose to her feet. "You are dumb."

"You love me."

"Looks that way." Claire shifted a little, "Don't take this wrong but you seem better. You're joking again. You're going out more. I actually swear I saw you at the Opera last week but I must have been NUTS because there's NO WAY you'd go to the Opera."

Amused, Chris rose from his desk and grabbed his jacket. He picked up the pie and followed her toward the door. "I'm fine, kid, really. And I was at the opera, thank you very much. I get the impression you're saying I don't have any class."

"You have plenty of class," They moved toward the elevators together, "It just usually finds you at a Yankees game instead of in a monkey suit watching fat guys sing arias."

"I'm doing this new thing where I go outside my comfort zone and see if I like it."

They elevator chugged happily. Claire liked his face, true, and she really liked the peace on it. He looked…happy. And he hadn't looked happy in a long time.

"How's that workin out for ya?"

"Great." He shifted.

Claire waited.

The silence pulled.

And he admitted, sheepishly, "Opera sucks."

Now she laughed, happily, and bumped his hip with hers. "Yep. Sucks shit. I'm not sure why I went. My date was nice enough. But it's not my thing."

"What about the date? Was he your thing?"

Amused, they crossed the lobby together. Claire remarked, "Nope. Handsome enough. Charming. Makes plenty of money. A doctor. George Hamilton? He was the Chief of Surgery at Raccoon Gen back in the day."

Chris stopped and blinked at her. She realized he'd stopped and turned back. "What?"

"Claire…he's like fifty."

Claire shrugged, laughing with delight, "Soooo? Your point here is what? It was a date, Christopher, not a wedding. He's handsome. He asked. His wife passed a few years ago and he's lonely. So am I, in case you missed the memo. I haven't been out with anybody since Neil. I thought it was a good time to take a chance."

Shaking his head, they moved to climb into the back of the town car she had waiting for them. Settling in, Chris studied her in the low light from the window, "You never said you were lonely."

Claire turned her gaze to his face. They smiled gently at each other.

And she answered, "You've been struggling so much…didn't seem fair to throw my problems on top of that. I can deal with loneliness, Chris. I'm ok."

He lifted his arm and she slid against him, putting her head on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry I left you alone, C-Bear. You should have told me. I would have fixed it."

Touched, she laughed a little, "Oh yeah? Gonna build me the perfect man, are you? Maybe you could punch a guy into loving me?"

Chris chortled, kissing her forehead. "I would do it, kid. You know that. You saying no one's caught your interest since Neil?"

Claire shifted, watching the road outside the window whiz by. Someone had, she mused, but it would be hard to explain the why of it to her brother. And it didn't matter anyway…because he wasn't looking back at her anyway. He was so wrapped up in his own misery, he wasn't looking anywhere but at his regret.

She did seem to have a thing for the underdog, for the broken, for the lost, for the nuts. First, there was Steve….poor stupid Steve who'd died so tragically trying to save her. Then there was a series of stupid one night stands and mistakes when she'd had no time to find something real.

There'd been half a shot at something good with Kevin Ryman but she'd blown that by getting scared of her feelings for him and pulling away. She'd left him standing in the airport with two tickets to Spain and three hundred dollars in flight cancelation fees. It was one of her great regrets.

She'd had a horribly brief flirtation with Frederic Downing, who, it seemed, was also a megalomaniacal monster. After getting his ass incarcerated for treason, she'd taken a brief look at her choice in men and panicked a little.

So, she'd been celibate for a while before having a brief affair with a perfectly nice accountant at TerraSave. That had ended with a marriage proposal and her having to decline, politely, and explain she wasn't in love with him. She kept waiting for lightning to strike and to get swept away…instead, she kept getting lost in the emptiness of the wrong relationships.

She'd met Neil and been attracted. They'd had a good run. He was funny and friendly and engaging in bed. And he'd been playing her the whole time. His betrayal had hurt so badly that she'd ENJOYED killing him. The first time she'd ever enjoyed killing. She'd felt JOY the moment he'd died.

And it scared her to death.

She'd gone running away from that like a house on fire and nearly fucked up her friendship with Leon by trying to get him in bed with her in a drunken haze of regret. She'd found him in a bar in Croatia. He'd been a fucking mess himself after a nightmare in the Eastern Slav Republic.

They'd drank too much. They'd leaned on each other.

They'd done it a thousand times before.

They'd hugged.

And her? She'd started groping.

Why not? Her mind had told her. Maybe this is it. Maybe THIS is it. You've been overlooking him all these years. Maybe he's the one. Maybe that's why you can't be happy with anyone else. Maybe it's meant to be Leon Kennedy!

So, she'd pushed her way into the little bathroom in that bar and put her hands all over her best friend. They were both so drunk that, at first, it had been hotter than all holy hell. Leon lived up to his reputation.

He'd pushed her into the wall, put his hands in her pants, and had her screaming and bucking and coming. Both of their heads had been spinning and swirling and their bodies liked it. They liked the groping and sucking and gasping.

Surprisingly, he'd been the one to stop.

He'd had her thrown over the sink on her belly and was going to town on getting her pants off and he'd stopped. She'd looked up, caught his heavy-lidded gaze in the mirror, and seen the moment he retreated. He'd let her go, stumbling a little.

And he'd said, "…shit. SHIT. Claire…this is nuts."

She'd turned and staggered, head SWIRLING, and her hands were all over him again. He was actually retreating from her. He'd tucked her hands against her belly and warned, "Whoa girl. Whoa. What's happening here?"

In her drunken anger, she'd slurred, "It's fucking, Kennedy. You need an instruction manual or something? Take your pants off and fuck me."

He'd kept holding her still against the wall, "You don't want to fuck me, Claire. You're just mad. We both are. Jesus. I'm so fucking drunk. I don't even know what the hell is going on here. Do you?"

"Does it matter? Don't be a faggot. What kinda guy turns down a willing chic? You gay? Or what? Shut up and give it to me."

She might have lost him then. She might have. She was so mean. Such a bitch. Even her drunken brain knew she was a bitch.

But he'd just laughed.

He'd laughed and drug her into him to hold her.

And she'd clung, shaking.

And he'd said, "I'll give it to you, you firey thing, I'll give it to you."

Not the sex, no, the hugging. That's what they both needed. The hugging. The moment he hugged her, she knew it. It was what he was to her. Her best friend. She needed the hugging.

So they'd stood in that bathroom and hugged.

And then? She'd barfed all over him.

And because he was her best friend, he didn't even get mad about it.

But she'd nearly lost him being stupid.

So, in her run of bad boy choices, there was the newest one: Piers Nivans. The possibly resurrected, potentially still infected, emotionally destructive, physically deconstructed mess of a former protégé to her brother. He was all kinds of wrong for her.

For one, he was like eight years younger than her. Which…wasn't a big deal, exactly, but it meant he was ten when she graduated high school. So that…was kinda shitty. It was also a double standard because it shouldn't matter at all. And if Chris was sniffing around a girl eight years his junior, nobody would even give a shit.

She was a cougar.

It was pretty amusing.

They were greeted by the happy staff at the Rehab Hospital. Piers had been here for so long that he was basically indoctrinated as part of the building. He was able to leave. He'd been cleared for months now.

Claire had just recently gotten him to even leave the building.

They took walks around the campus. They had lunch together. They went down to the pond and lingered. They talked and worked on his physical therapy.

But he'd only left the premises ONCE and he'd stayed in the car while she'd gone to the store alone to get something.

He'd gotten out of the car to walk with her on the trail she'd chosen for them. But she'd been careful to be very VERY aware of any other people. It broke her heart.

The year that had passed since he'd been back had been kind to him.

He was still recovering emotionally, it was true, but physically he was at the top of his game. He had full control of his hand again and the virus in his blood had actually given him an innate ability to turn the lights on and off without trying. He seemed to have retained some preternatural control on electricity. It was fascinating to watch him generate lightning from his fingertips like an X-Man or something.

It was the face; she knew that it was entirely his face. It wouldn't get any better. The last consult with a plastic surgeon had confirmed that there was nothing else they could do for him. The last two grafts hadn't taken and he was still badly scarred.

It was better, some, than when he'd first come back. A series of procedures had restored the vision and the beauty of his hazel eyes. They'd taken a good portion of the scarring from his jaw to his nose and smoothed it out. But the eye and the forehead were still badly marked.

Honestly? It had never mattered to her. Ever. He was beautiful. She kept telling him that and meeting with his derision. He couldn't get past the fear of her pity.

There was no pity.

None.

But he didn't believe her.

She wasn't sure how to get through to him. He was so worried about scaring people. He was ashamed of his face. He called himself a monster.

He was happy to see them. They had turkey. They had pie.

He laughed.

They went for a walk in the warm sunshine. It was a cool day, bordering on the evening; the sun was a metallic glow of gold and orange. The grounds were turning brown as they headed toward winter.

Piers wore gray sweats with the sleeves pushed up his arms. Claire held his hand as they walked. The gesture wasn't lost on her brother.

And he wasn't sure how he felt about it.

He wanted her happy. He wasn't sure Piers the right choice for that. The kid was a mess. Worse than that, he was a basket case.

Lips pursed in thought, Chris tailed them as they walked toward the pond.

Piers was saying something to make her laugh. And that helped a little.

Whatever else was true, he cared about her. That was written all over his ravaged face. Would it be enough to keep him from slipping into a depression so deep and wide it killed them both?

There was no telling.

Some kids in the recovery ward were outside playing. The sun was high, it was a good day…and then Piers saw the kids. He froze. He panicked.

He ducked behind her. He cowered a little. He whispered, "Let's go back, Claire. Hurry. Before they see me."

Claire felt the shiver of anger and sympathy. She glanced over her shoulder at her brother. Her expression was so grief stricken. It was asking for what?

Help. And he knew how to give it to her.

Piers started to turn back and Chris grabbed his arm at the elbow. They locked eyes in the dying sun. Piers looked like he'd bolt if given the chance. He begged, softly, "Please, Captain. I can't."

"You're not a coward." Chris spoke coolly, holding that panicked gaze, "Stop being an idiot."

The children playing in the sun looked up as he escorted Piers over to them.

The moment they were close, Piers' whole body, previously contorted in fear and panic, relaxed.

They were kids from the burn unit. They were scarred and missing hair and one only had use of her left hand. The other was mangled and in a cast.

The difference?

The kids were laughing in the sun.

Not cowering.

Chris let go of his arm.

Piers knelt and started talking. The kids gathered around him to listen and laugh.

Chris felt Claire step up beside him. Her hand slid down his arm and gripped, palm to palm. She breathed, softly, "…thank you."

And she sounded choked up. He kissed her temple.

Chris didn't look at her.

If he did, he was afraid they'd both cry. Instead, they watched Piers Nivans play with children in the sun. And, for a brief moment, everything was ok.

He asked, quietly, "Are you in love with him?"

And her answer was soft and earnest, "I think so. How could I not be? He saved your life. He loves you enough to protect you. Maybe that's always been the thing that's missing, ya know? Maybe it needed to be somebody that loves you as much as I do."

Yeah, he thought, if they looked at each other – they were both going to cry.

So to avoid that, Chris laughed a little and teased her, "That's pretty fucking sappy, C-Bear. They're gonna take away your BITCHES WITH BALLS OF STEEL card for saying it."

Claire pinched his side and got a yelp from him for it. "You are a gross misogynist Chris Redfield. And I am ashamed you are my brother."

But she laughed anyway and held on to him while they watched Pier Nivans emerge, just a little more, from the shell of what he'd been.

New York, November

Leaning on his balcony, elbows akimbo, Chris Redfield tried to see the flickering lights of the New York skyline amongst the rapidly surging swell of clouds. The twinkle of bright spots was a bit like bombs over Raccoon City on the morning of its destruction or the sanitation of Valkoinen Mokki...or the suggestion of something less depressing and more beautiful. Perhaps it was the twinkle of lights on a Christmas tree in Times Square or a pretty suggestion of a constellation high in the velvety richness of space.

Amused with his prose, he thought about his sister and her interest in Piers Nivans. The protective brother in him wanted to steer her away. Piers was a good kid but the nurturing side of Claire would try too hard to fix him and he'd end up sucking her dry if he continued to digress. What they'd seen today was hope, true, but Piers had taken a year to come this far. How long would it take before he'd leave that god forsaken shit hospital and get on with his life? Claire would range herself beside him and be sucked into his misery. Chris could hardly abide the idea of it.

"Are the answers to the universe in the dark, Chris Redfield?"

Surprised, he turned. And it was a rare thing to find him caught off guard.

The pleasure of seeing her welded to the annoyance of knowing she'd penetrated his various levels of security without batting an eye to reach his inner sanctum. The BSAA building at night was a fortress. But here she stood, unfazed, in a swirling red duster that looked like good leather and holding a tiny plate in one long-fingered hand. The humor of it spilled out of his mouth with a sharp laugh.

Because the plate had tater tots and a corndog beneath a veil of sheer plastic wrap.

"The Redfield family special?" She teased and twirled the plate a little with a saucy little smile.

The shoes were silk, stones, and sin with straps and ice pick heels. Her legs looked twelve feet long in them.

His mouth watered and it had nothing to do with the tots.

For Ada, it was a curious feeling to see him here. In the moonlight, his chest was a marvel of modern masculinity. It was framed by the dress shirt left carelessly open and the slacks left temptingly unbuttoned. His bare feet were adorable and made a lie of the rest of what had once been a respectable business suit.

She'd been gone for days on assignment and come back to find her machine empty, her voicemail vacant, her cell phone without a text and her email void. A fascinating thing since they'd rarely gone a day without communicating since they'd begun their little affair. The shift of power had happened somewhere here. And she found herself amused and a little unnerved by it.

She couldn't let him think it was all his. That was not how she did business. It wasn't how she did relationships. And it wasn't how she left things. She was the bitch in red. She left no job unfinished and no man in control.

He mused, "I have half a pumpkin pie in the kitchen that Claire let me take home with me. Care to indulge in a slice?"

He was leaning in reverse now on the railing of the balcony. The cold air tickled his chest and left his nipples turgid and excited. She wanted to put her mouth to him and sample. And so she set the plate she carried down on the table beside her and said, "Not exactly what I'm hungry for."

"No?"

"No."

"It's Thanksgiving, Ada. What are you thankful for?"

She tilted her head, studying him. His face was so very alight with amusement. It was time to take command of him again.

Her hands shifted and untied her coat. She pursed her lips on a cat-like smile. "Winning." And she opened the coat.

The teddy and garters she wore were red and black, red and black, red and sex. She was pale skin and torture, lace and silk and satiny temptation. She was a mouth-watering thing that roared into his blood and left him light-headed.

The cold air fanned out of her mouth in a smooth white cloud, he shifted toward her, and her laugh of delight tinkled musically around them.

His arm hooked under her coat and around her narrow waist, he lifted her against him and brought her mouth open with a gasp of need, and turned her toward the railing. She let him set her on it, opened her legs to allow him between, and watched the dense crown of his hair as he savored the flavor of her collarbone and put his teeth to her waiting nipple beneath the cup of the silky teddy.

Ada's breath fell out on a sigh, her fingers gripped the banister beside her hips to hold on, and she let him devour the taste of her while her body was inches from plummeting off the tower to her agonizing death below them. This high, there was nothing but them and the night. It spilled around them in a dark embrace, offering a perfect backdrop to the sinful delight of doing something nefarious and just a little naughty in their place of work.

His breath was warm on her ear, "Did you come to feed me, Ada?"

And her musical laugh put fire in his blood for her, "Yes. I'll come...and feed you."

Lord.

His hands slid her panties away. His palms parted her thighs. The garter, red, red and wanton. Red and wicked. It framed the delight of her body as he knelt in the cold and put his mouth to her.

There was power here that was undeniable Ada thought, desperately surging against the skill of his tongue inside her. Power. The most powerful man in the B.S.A.A. was kneeling between her legs to pleasure her. The power of that was so evocative, so erotic, so catastrophically exciting that she threw her head back and cried out in pleasure with each stroke, each plunge, each swirling skillful pulse of him.

She came hard, gasping, jerking - watching the sinful sight of him now as he licked at her body with a lover's gleeful hunger. His hands played with her breasts as he savored, his mouth left nothing but the throbbing need for him behind. She bucked against his face, grabbed handfuls of his hair, and jerked him up to her.

And commanded him, "Now."

His hand grabbed her throat, startling her, and it wasn't easy. It was rough. Possessive. His other arm looped over her hips and jerked her to him. She barely grabbed handfuls of his arms to hold onto and he surged into her.

Again, she thought madly, not gentle. Not here. Not now.

An animal.

Feral.

The hard, wet, thunderous slap of their joining ripped a shout from her. Too hard, in a way, it throbbed and almost hurt. She pushed a little into his arms as if she'd stop him. And that amused her. Because, if he stopped, she'd kill him.

She gasped, desperately, "Wait."

But he didn't.

It impressed her.

He was, without a doubt, the most tactile lover she'd ever had. His thrusting was as hard as his body. He was, by turns, at her every command or willing to disobey her to please them both. She dropped her hands from his arms to grab the railing again as he shoved himself into her body.

When his pants fell to the balcony, he kicked them away and kept going, never faltering, never losing his rhythm. Maddened, Ada held on while he obliterated her. When he slowed as if to offer her respite, she shouted, "Don't! More!"

And he delivered.

He jerked her off the railing and against him. Her legs wrapped. He kept on thrusting into her as he carried her out of the cold and into his office.

She bucked in his arms, he spilled her over the desk and pushed her legs open at the knees, crudely.

Her nails dropped, dug into the wonderful shape of his ass, and drove down on him. Grunting, he surged forward like a racehorse commanded, thrilling them both with his speed and greed.

Ada felt her body tighten, felt her breath jerk, and she saw the reflection of them in the window beyond his desk. A sight, erotic and arousing and raw, the flap of his shirt still on his torso. The spill of her coat. The sight of her smoky stockings and the red of her shoes.

Power.

There was POWER here between them. A powerful man, a powerful woman - a powerful game she played to see how far she could ride the madness of it and keep him at her command. She craved it.

And him.

He'd commanded her to come once...she did so now, gasping, low and raspy and dark. "Now. Chris - now."

His name on her lips. What was it that made his blood boil to hear it?

He pushed her down on her back on the desk, one hand splayed over her groin, the other anchoring her hips. She widened her legs, she shifted to take the hammering of him into her deeper, faster. And the sight of her pale and flushed, bucking and beautiful, long and lean and lost in satin and blood red silk...it stole his last conscious thought.

And he simply became hers, a rutting beast of a thing at her command.

He ground himself into her body so hard it hurt them both and came there, crushed against the end of her, buried inside of her. He wanted to claim her but it wasn't that, it wasn't, it was HER claiming HIM somehow. Somehow. And they both knew it.

She arched, willowly and graceful, to meet and merge with every murderous plunge.

The echo of her voice ensorcelled him.

He cursed out her name and the wet of her body milked him while he rode her through his release.

Unceremoniously, his shaking thighs dumped him back into his office chair while she lay used and resplendent across his mahogany desk.

They both were still; gasping and shaking and spent.

And Chris realized the thing he was most thankful for wasn't winning. No. It wasn't.

It was losing...to Ada Wong.


	6. Innoculation

Chapter 6: Innoculation

"Panic made pains in the heart that echoed - in the ventricles and the atrium - and the soul. She yearned to feel numb once more."

MAINE, DECEMBER  
....

"They can't see you. I swear. Come out here."

The cabin that faced the beautiful Cobscook Bay was a safe haven for a man that wouldn't emerge into the sunlight. Within the warm embrace of the firelight, he lingered. On the water, he could see the boats and the faces of the happy that dwelled and fished and laughed.

Piers Nivans didn't belong there.

Sometimes, when he was with Claire, he felt like maybe he belonged. Maybe he could belong somewhere, where they could be friends forever and not feel the judgement of a world that would label him a monster. She was so beautiful. Her skin was silky and pale, flawless, and smooth. Even if he HADN'T been ruined...he would have never tried to garner her interest in him.

For one, she was his Captain's sister. In his job, in his kind of lifestyle, what could he offer the Captain's sister? And if he failed her? His Captain would never look to him again with any respect.

But maybe..maybe...when he'd been whole...he might have done it anyway. The sight of her in the sun, her hair afire in the warm light, her eyes the same shade as the Bay that blushed and surged behind her...left him yearning a little.

He MIGHT have tried once...if he'd been...human.

But he wasn't human. He was broken. He was empty.

Most days he couldn't feel anything but bitterness and regret. He should have DIED down in that lab. It was his last great gift, his purpose, his shining self sacrifice that would take him to the beyond in a blaze of glory.

He should have gone "down with the ship" and sent his Captain on to survive and glorify the BSAA with his legendary leadership.

But no.

Someone had recovered his mutilated corpse and brought him back to life. He'd awoken a shell, empty and fragile, immersed in pain and screaming. He'd awoken a monster.

The effects of the virus were mostly permanent. Some were tempered and controlled through conversion therapy and regressive persuasion...but most of it was lasting. Maybe he didn't have a stabbing blade of an arm anymore or the rotting signs of a Javo...but he wasn't HIM anymore either. Besides the grotequeness of his appearance, there was the emptiness in his heart.

He wanted to FEEL alive. He did. He wanted to feel it.

But he felt dead inside.

"Come on, please, just for a minute? If you hate it that much, we'll go back. I promise."

And then there was Claire.

Claire.

He never felt dead inside when she was with him.

And that scared him most of all.

He eased out of the cabin onto the porch with her. Touched, she took his hand and curled their fingers together. They stood in the sun for a long moment, watching the boats on the water.

She'd rented this cabin as a test for them, for him, for them. They were away from the hospital, they were together, they were enjoying time away from the world where no one knew them. She was hoping it would break him out of his funk. She was hoping it would let him start healing a little in ways that didn't include his body.

She'd heard the nurses speculating as she'd been packing his things in her car. She knew they weren't aware she was listening. They were so cruel. They were laughing lightly about the damage to his body. They were speculating if he was ruined "all over." One was musing, if he were scarred down there, was he still functional? And the other wondered if a woman alive would bother to touch him anyway to even find out.

Her face flaming, Claire had turned toward where they were sitting on a little bench enjoying their lunch together, and he voice SHOOK with rage, "For the record, he's not only functional, he's fantastic. He fucks like he'll kill you with it. His dick? Beautiful. In fact? He's beautiful all over...which is more than I can say for you fugly ass bitches. It takes a real heartless set of cunts to sit around laughing at a man who was destroyed saving your worthless lives from the virus that nearly killed him. If there's any justice in the universe, you'll all get herpes that spreads to your faces and makes you as ugly on the outside as you are inside."

Horrified, the three nurses had sat there as she'd turned away to finish loading his bags.

After a long moment, she'd lifted her head to find him watching her from the doorway. And she knew...he'd heard every word.

She was afraid that their laughter would break him, but it turned out of her defense of him healed something in him instead. He'd hugged her, right there in the open, for the first time ever. And it felt like she'd burst with love for him.

Maybe part of her was here with him now to touch him. She knew, in some way, if she touched him and he didn't shy away...that it would be what he needed to come back to himself. There was no chance of that happening in New York.

So, they were here. And he was standing in the sun with her.

And there was hope, maybe for the first time ever, there was hope.

She mused, softly, "You want to take the little boat out later?"

She was sure he'd say no. She was positive he would.

But he said, "I think I would. Did I ever tell you I used to have a little sloop?"

Her heart was hammering in her chest, "Nope. Hand carved?"

"Yep. All by me."

"You are more like Chris than you'd think. He has one of those himself."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah." She turned her face up to him, watching his ravaged profile in the warm sunlight, "Tell me you'll stay this weekend...with me."

His face turned down to her. Their gazes lingered.

His bad hand lifted and, just a little, touched the edge of her jaw. For him, it was almost like a kiss. Her breath held with excitement for it.

And his answer made her yearn. "...I'll stay. I can't think of any place else in the world I'd rather be."

For the life of her, Claire couldn't either.  
....

NEW YORK, DECEMBER  
.....

"You can't make me."

The words lay between them like a land mine. One wrong step would set it off. And it would rain fire and brimstone down upon them. It would set the world afire. It would burn and burn and destroy everything it touched. The pain would mean the end. And the end would be better…worlds better…then this.

"It only hurts for a second and then it's over."

"You promised I would enjoy this. Christopher, you lied." And it was accusatory, it was exasperated. And she was more than alarmed at what he was suggesting. In all her life, she'd had men attempt to lure her into all manner of nefarious things.

But this…how had she let him get her here, in this position? She was losing her edge. He'd stolen her edge. Where was Ada Wong?

She shifted and looked at him, hard. Ah, she thought, there she was. She was lost somewhere in the damn ice blue of those eyes.

"I think this violates the rules. It has to."

"The rules said nothing about it. I checked…twice."

And now she laughed. He tugged her hand again and she realized she was out of time. It was now or never. And Ada Wong had never been a coward before…she wouldn't start now.

So she let him pull her…out onto the ice at Rockefeller Center.

She wobbled for a moment on the ice skates and he was there to catch her arm and guide her easily alongside him. She was annoyed to discover he moved fluidly on his skates. The puffy black parka he wore complimented his sock hat. The little hat was tucked carefully around his ears to keep them warm and his hands were happy and snug in gloves with just the tips of the fingers missing. She had to admit, he looked scrumptiously adorable all bundled up against the cold.

She was dressed in a Northface coat herself, this one a pretty plum color with a white fox fur hood. A cashmere infinity scarf in brilliant white was tucked carefully and perfectly around her neck and her short cap of hair was hidden beneath a matching white fur hat. Her hands were encased in soft leather gloves in mocha brown.

If he'd have mentioned what horrible torture he had in store for her, she would have dressed warmer beneath the coat. She was wearing white leggings that, when not tortured by ice skates, tucked into knee high brown Jimmy Choo boots and an oversized gray cable knit Ralph Lauren sweater with a floppy neck line that was cinched at the waist by a fat brown leather belt. The outfit was very chic and very chilly in the cold New York winter air.

Chris laughed a little as she wobbled again. "Ada Wong – I thought you could do anything."

"I can, you patronizing ass, " And to prove it, she let go of him to skate off alone. She could ice skate, it was true. But she hadn't had to in years. Of course, one never knew when it might be necessary to flee across a frozen river in their line of work so it was probably the best idea to get some practice.

She poured on some speed, getting into the spirit of the thing, and turned backward now, cruising easily as she found her rhythm.

"I stand corrected!" He passed several other skaters and caught up to her, taking her hands as she skated flawlessly backward now and he joined her. "I am forced to eat my words."

"Who taught you to skate anyway? You seem a lumbering buffoon. I find it hard to believe you can glide like you do."

He laughed, delighted with her. She'd managed to insult him like a lady. She was so fucking perfect.

Chris mused, chuckling, "Putting aside the feeling you're calling me clumsy, I played hockey. I learned to skate young."

"Ah. Yes. Hockey. Makes sense. A barbarians version of skating."

"What? You think I'm some Kennedy type? He was probably a figure skater. He's skinny enough to fit in those stupid spangled spandex girl suits they wear."

Ada smirked a little, liking the jealousy on him. It suited her. She wanted him jealous. It would make it easier to control him when it suited her.

"I'm fairly sure he does back flips on skates without thinking about it. Don't be jealous...I'm sure he can't punch boulders with remotely as much finesse."

He skidded to a stop on the skates. They held gazes. She was utterly serene. Not a smile. Not a sly wink. Nothing.

And he just...burst out laughing. It was a good laugh. It was full bodied. It caused people around him to smile at the sheer joy. He laughed like he did all things: all in, completely, unconcerned by the judgement of others.

His face was slightly pink from the cold air. The tip of his nose flushed. She lifted a hand to brush away a snowflake that had settled there and did something very unlike her; she let her finger settle on his mouth afterward for just a fleeting second. For her it was akin to a hug. It stole her breath a little, that intimacy. And she didn't like it at all.

He drew her to a stop beneath the giant tree, pulling her around to face it. And she had to admit, in all the years of her living in the city, she'd never taken the time to come see the tree here. It was amazing, huge and beautiful, casting it's light over the entire world it seemed. You had to stand and admire it, for just a few moments at least.

The snowflakes tickled her eyelashes as they flitted down to the delight of the other skaters.

"It's something huh?"

She nodded, smiling. "It is. I've never actually come to see it before."

He slid his arms around her waist from behind and pulled her back against him. "Well I'm glad you decided to come with me, Ada. It's the first time I've come to see it in years. I guess I haven't really had a reason to in a long time."

The alarm bells were tolling loud and fast in her head but she settled back in that embrace, unsure why it was scaring her so much. It wasn't against the rules after all, affection was allowed. But why was she afraid of it? "I didn't exactly decide to come, Mr. Redfield. I was coerced."

He was grinning a little.

And she conceded, "But thank you for bringing me."

"Thank you for coming. It's nice to have someone to share Christmas with."

She pulled away now, hating herself for the panic that was settling like a clawed thing into her chest. This had to be against the rules. Had to. Hadn't she said no emotions? No.

She shook her head and skated toward the exit. He followed her, likely unaware of the storm that was brewing inside of her. She stepped off the ice and moved to sit down and unlace her skates.

"Hey! Everything ok?"

Ada shook her head, setting the skates aside to pull on her boots. "Nothing. Just getting cold and it's starting to snow."

"Okay. Let's go get some coffee. There's a great little shop around the corner called Serendipity. Fantastic scones."

Ada nodded and watched him slip on his boots. He offered her a hand to help her rise and she ignored it, moving toward the street. She knew he was watching her with a little confusion and she was sorry for it. But she had to walk off some of this panic.

It was Friday night and cold, the breath fogging out of the mouth in a pretty white clouds. A cold front had pushed in during the day and brought the beginnings of snow with it. By the following morning, there would likely be some accumulation. It had already started to gently frost the windshields of cars.

He reached for her hand and she pulled away again, moving a little farther until they were nearly three feet apart. Saying nothing, he tucked his hands in the pockets of his coat. He wasn't a fool, he knew the signs of subtle rejection. He just wasn't sure what she was about with it.

For the last two months they'd had a really good thing going. They enjoyed each other, it was as simple as that. There hadn't been any pressure. Zero. Once or twice a week they would have a meal, see a play, get naked and sweaty and sticky together, and simply be. That's it. They would BE together. One time, she would choose. One time, he would.

He'd taken her to a Mets game, to the Bronx Zoo, to Coney Island. He'd watched Ada Wong eat a Coney Island dog and figured he was probably the only man on earth to have ever seen it happen. He'd seen Ada Wong in a Mets ball cap and figured he was the only man who had probably ever seen that either. It was a bit like seeing a chupacabra, he figured no one would ever believe him if he told them.

She'd taken him to the Met as well, to see La Boheme, which he hadn't all together hated surprisingly. And she'd taken him to the Rainbow Room, and they'd gone dancing…twice. She was a study of contradictions in what she loved to do. One night she'd simply taken him out driving in her flashy little red Maserati. Ada, it seemed, loved fast and beautiful things. It suited her and he was never bored. Never. And she was without equal when it came to passion. He'd never, in the whole of his life, had a woman that was so willing to touch him whenever it suited her.

She'd had him in the shadows of that little red Maserati with the top down and the starlight in her hair. She'd ridden him and robbed something from him he couldn't get back. It was ok, he was a willing victim, but he yearned a little for her to let him in where it mattered. She was never unguarded, even if she was completely uninhibited in the bedroom.

But she shied away from affection like this. Sometimes, rarely, she let him touch her in a manner that was more than sex. Rarely. But sometimes. The sight of the playful otters at the zoo had made her laugh in delight and hug him. Full body, no thinking. She'd just hugged him. But something had shifted in him, hard. And he knew, even if she didn't, that this was more than sex.

He wasn't sure he was ready for it either but the other option was to cut her off. And he didn't want to. He wasn't sure he'd ever want to. But he was sure of one thing, she was trying to pull away from him and he didn't like that one bit.

They passed by Serendipity without going in for coffee. Without saying a word, they moved to the privacy of the BSAA building. Neither said anything as the elevator rose, leaving them standing in awkward silence.

The door had barely closed on the penthouse before she said it, "I think it might be time to rethink this."

He tossed his sock hat on the shiny black piano that sat off to one side of his living room. Behind him, New York was alight with holiday cheer. The Empire State Building was twinkling red and green and the tree they'd left behind was declaring it was the most wonderful time of the year. The puffy parka quickly followed and Ada felt herself wince as he gave no concern to the fact that he had just tossed his clothes onto an $80,000 Steinway grand piano. It was clear he knew nothing of the value of thing.

He was always saying it, but it was never more clear in than in this moment: he was no Leon Kennedy.

Leon knew the value of beautiful things. Chris Redfield? He was a man as comfortable in an eight dollar Hanes shirt as he was in a three thousand dollar Armani suit. He simply didn't care about the worth of the mundane or the material. He valued what mattered: devotion, emotion, dedication. And it was what made him so unique and utterly reliable.

You almost forgot he wasn't simple until he did something unpredictable, and stole your breath.

The sweater he wore was oatmeal colored, an Irish fisherman sweater that was probably as soft as it looked. The jeans beneath were, as always, old and faded and nearly worn through at one knee. One of the back pockets had started to rip away. But they fit right, in all the right places, and the sight of him never failed to make her blood heat.

He poured himself three fingers of vodka. He rarely drank. He'd come back from his druken months of regret and steered clear of it. She knew he was hurting, badly, if he was willing to drink.

"Chris, did you hear me?"

"I heard you." He shot the drink back in one fluid motion. "Take off the coat Ada. At least have the decency to dump me without your armor on."

Because he was very much right, the coat was armor, she took it off and hung it neatly on the coat rack beside the door. The hat was hung nicely beside it. She was just vain enough to scoop a hand through her hair as she rejoined him in the living room.

He was standing looking out the window now, one hand tucked carelessly into a pocket, the other bringing a second drink to his lips for a smooth swallow. "Did you want a drink?"

Ada shook her head. "I shouldn't stay. Could you look at me please?"

He turned, studied her. "Just do it. Say it."

"It's not fun anymore." She heard the words and knew it was better to do it this, like this, then tell the truth. Which was what? Her mind wondered. What was the truth? Chris, I'm ending this because I'm afraid it's gotten too close, it's gotten too comfortable. Chris, I'm ending this because I don't want you to get any closer. I need to retain my control, I can't do that if you're too close. "We said we'd end it when it wasn't fun anymore."

"We did say that." He turned, set the glass down on the piano, and settled himself on the bench. His fingers danced carefully over the ivory…and started to play. Moonlight Sonata spilled out of the wonderful, beautiful, brilliant instrument that he masterfully stroked.

Yes. A simple man...until he did something unpredictable and stole your breath.

"A long time ago, I had to help Rebecca figure this damn song out while we were at the Spencer Estate," He smoothly tickled the keys, coaxing them to sing their song flawlessly, "After it all happened, I figured, what the fuck…I'm gonna learn how to play the damn piano. Because you never know when it might be something I need again."

He touched the piano with such skill, such precise and perfect ability; she felt her heart stutter and drop. "Somewhere along the way I stopped thinking of it as a necessary skill. And I just fell in love with it. There were times I wanted to give up and stop doing it. Because it would have been easier to just quit when it got hard. I guess my point is that we don't always get what we expect from something Ada…sometimes we get something even better. But the hard part is sticking around to figure out if it's worth working for it. "

She hadn't realized she was moving toward him. She didn't think he had either, until she slid over him and settled on his lap, straddling him. What really turned her on was that he didn't hesitate, and didn't stop playing the song, even as she put her weight on him.

His eyes turned up to her face but he kept on playing, muscle memory and practice, and sheer talent. Another check in the column of things she liked about him. He was unflappable, and so unpredictable, and so immensely diverse. How could she have guessed the depths of him? Would anyone have suspected what lay beneath the beer and nachos jock that he portrayed to the rest of the world?

Ada said nothing now, her hands pushed under the sweater and lifted, freeing the soft lambs wool from his body. He stopped playing long enough to let her and began again, the low, eerie strains of Beethoven's classic piece filling the room with it's ethereal beauty.

Ada put her mouth to the side of his neck and licked a wet, smooth line from collarbone to pec. Her nails raked gently through the feathering of hair that decorated him there. She pressed warm, moist kisses over the rigid scope and breadth of his chest, delighting in the muscled strength of him. Her teeth teased at the St. Christopher's medal that he wore on a sterling silver chain, a gift from his parents at his graduation from flight school.

She skimmed her hands down the ridged and wonderful planes of his stomach, marveling at the muscles there, plenty to tantalize without being overly defined. He wasn't ripped out, like a body builder, even though it would have been easy for his body to lean that way. He was simply muscular, strong, with a suggestion of definition beneath the warm, wonderful skin that turned into goosebumps beneath her teasing nails.

Her mouth turned, kissing smooth and soft, up his neck and along his jaw. He hadn't shaved in almost a week now and the hair had gone from a shadow to the beginnings of a fantastic beard. Not stubbly, it had passed into soft, and it met her lips sweetly as she crossed his jaw to his cheek.

She kissed the tip of his nose, still cool from the outside, and both of his closed eye lids. And her thumbs traced his soft and wonderful mouth. She nuzzled his growing beard with her nose, loving the tickle of the soft hair.

"How long until it's a full beard?"

Her voice was soft in the quiet against the back drop of music from his still playing hands. Eyes closed, he answered, softly, "Won't be much longer. Hasn't taken me longer than a few weeks since I was about fifteen. Why?"

"I think I'd like to see it on you. Will you let it go for me?"

He stopped playing and his eyes opened. This close, they were startlingly blue, almost the shocking blue of ice and winter sky. They were so close that their noses brushed as he answered.

"Yes."

She brushed her nose against his, once, twice. He didn't move, not a muscle, as she cupped his face, ran her thumbs along his cheeks.

Outside the snow had started to come down in fat, heavy, flakes. It would be more than a few inches by morning at this rate.

She met his eyes now and held them. "I want to stay the night here with you. I want to have you on this piano."

He was so very still, she found she liked that. It was like he was trying to avoid the strike of the snake. She pressed her mouth to edge of his and she wanted, almost painfully, to kiss him. And it scared her enough that she retreated from the idea of it with a vengeance.

"Say yes, Chris. Say yes. Let me have you."

He lifted his hands now and slid them around the inside of her thighs. "Yes."

The moment he said it, he wanted it back. Because he was afraid if he let her that far in, he'd never want to let her out.

And he'd somehow lost the game without even knowing the rules.

Because he was the guy stupid enough to start falling for a spy.  
....

MAINE, DECEMBER  
....

The dishes were done. The fire was quivering prettily in the little wood-stove. The crackle of flame and logs was nearly musical.

Her voice was so very soft when Claire asked, quietly, "You know why I brought you up here, don't you?"

Piers turned toward her, shaking a little. "I know...I don't know if I can, Claire."

The admission broke her heart and somehow gave her strength. She stepped up to him, trembling a little. Her hands lifted to settle on his ruined face and he almost...almost...pulled away. She saw what it cost him to stay there and let her hold him like that.

He was so very tall, she had to lean up on her tip toes to get her mouth close to his. She watched the panic on his face and wanted, desperately, to soothe it away. He breathed, gently, "I don't want to hurt you, Claire. For anything. Ever."

Her thumbs brushed his mouth, lovingly. "We won't hurt anymore now, Piers. Not anymore. I won't push you. I won't hurt you. I won't make you do anything you don't want to do. But I want...I want you to come take off your clothes, let me see you, let me touch you. Just...lay down beside me and hold me...let me hold you..."

He was trembling as he cupped her arms in his hands. She petted the shape of his face so perfectly. And there was nothing but tenderness on hers as he watched her.

He wanted, so badly, to just say yes. To just, just once, pretend he could have her.

And that he was himself again.

So his breath came out on a tiny sound of need and he whispered, "...yes."

His head came down, hers came up, and the press of his mouth was smooth and perfect. It robbed every thought but him from her head. It left them both clinging where they stood. The kiss was endless, effortless, and perfect. There was no rush to see it end. There was no rush to run away. They both wanted it to go on forever.

And the fire crackled happily as they held on, lost in each other.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Amplification

"Desperate, she fought and fell and bled. She clung and capitulated, costing her everything."  
....

Maine, December  
....

The middle of night found the fire had died. The shadows and the curl of moonlight on the floor and the walls was romantic, timeless, and storybook pretty.

The feel of him between her legs was something else.

In the dark, he wasn't afraid to touch her. The moment the lights had gone, he'd come alive in her arms. He forgot about the scars, forgot the crippling fear, and touched her. His hands and his mouth were no longer gentle, his need was nearly stifling.

He held her down beneath the weight of him, her arms drawn above her head, her legs around his flanks, her back bowing with each thrust of him inside her.

She'd told those nurses he was perfect. She'd defended him. She'd staunchly swore he was beautiful all over. And that he'd kill you with his touch.

He was killing her where she bucked beneath him.

He wouldn't let her up. His hands imprisoned, his hips cupped to her to hold her down for the plunge of him between her legs. Her nightgown was barely more than bunched around her waist. He hadn't taken it from her. He left it on her and slid her panties to the side. It was a coupling that was so painfully wet, so organic, so desperate that Claire could do little more than feel like blood and boil and want.

She'd never had a man be so desperate for her that he couldn't even take her clothes. She turned her head and he filled her mouth with his tongue. Someone moaned, someone gasped, and he just...he didn't stop.

It had been so long for her. She hadn't taken a man to bed since Neil. Her failed groping of Leon had resulted in abstinence on her part while she sorted out her life. She might have thought this would be gentle somehow, or sweet, or needy. It was. It was needy. But it wasn't gentle.

How long had it been for him, she wondered, how long? Knowing how devoted he'd been to his job, she was betting he'd been celibate himself long before he'd been damaged.

The pace increased, filling the quiet dark with the surging sounds of slapping skin and surrender. Claire begged a little, rising to meet each of his desperate thrusts. "Piers...Piers...let me...just let me..."

He let go of her hands.

They moved, catching in his hair to bring his mouth into her for a raping plumb of her tongue. The excitement of her spurred him on. They lunged together now, surging, throbbing. He scrambled to hold her tighter, drawing her up and into him and pushing her against the headboard.

Claire octopus held him, pushing against the beat of his body until he hit the end of her and drove small cries of pleasure and pain from her mouth. Too rough, she thought, and yet not rough enough. Perfect.

She shoved her hands under his sweater and rubbed his chest, spilling her fingers over the scars on him and petting. She grabbed handfuls of his back and jerked him harder into her with each stroke of his body. He grunted, gasped, and gave her everything he had until the rhythm was lost and they were just smashing together in a sweaty, desperate, dying heap.

He let her take the sweater off him and throw it away. He didn't care about her hands on his scars. He didn't care about anything but the feel of her writhing in his arms. He jerked the nightgown down and crushed the feel of her breasts into him. Soft, full, they brushed against his body and drove them both insane.

They rolled and Claire spilled atop him, swirling and rocking. She dropped her body until they clung, forehead to forehead, and her lifting and lowering hips were punctuated with each soft moan and sound of pleasure. Whose? It didn't matter.

It was both of them.

The moonlight shifted, it spilled over them in a silvery wash, and she breathed, "Piers...look at me..."

His eyes opened. They met hers...and held.

And they kept on holding when he surged up one last time, and let her claim him.

There was no regret in the moonlight. No pain.

Just two people lost in the thrill of discovery and the promise of release.

They curled together, gasping, and complete.

She pressed their mouths together and felt the moment he let her in, just a little, just enough.

In the dark, in the warmth of that cabin, his voice cuddled her closer, "Claire...Merry Christmas."

It wasn't a walk in the sun, it was love in the dark, but it was the beginning of something fragile and real.

She couldn't think of a Christmas she'd enjoyed more...in a long, long, long time.  
....

NEW YORK, DECEMBER  
.....

The game was something Ada Wong had been enjoying for so long that she'd forgotten, somewhere along the way, to insulate herself against an opponent that would use subterfuge to wound her.

He'd done that somehow...the man in the dark...he'd ducked right, ducked left and kicked her in the heart while she'd been trying to control him.

How?

In his sleep, he shifted toward her. His mouth brushed against her neck and the warmth of him slid over her like a blanket.

She should use his softness and turn the knife back on him. She should hurt him for slipping under her guard to make her care about him.

And he'd done that simply by existing.

The desire for revenge was entirely Ada Wong.

The desire to stifle it and avoid hurting the person responsible wasn't.

It was stupid, foolish, and juevenile. It was feminine and unguarded and overtly human. It was utterly natural that she should come to develop an affection for him. She didn't generally avoid that kind of thing in a lover. She wanted to like the man she was engaging in an affair with, naturally. And intelligence, humor, wit...these things all helped her be satisfied with one once she'd chosen.

But this was getting out of her hands here. She was fond of him. Fond. And that created conflict if she needed to end it. She'd tried, earlier, and failed. Not because of him...because of HER. Because she didn't want to stop sleeping with him. She didn't want to stop seeing him. She didn't want to stop enjoying him.

And he was making her crave him in a way that was distinctly outside her character.

As she lay beside him, reflecting, in the coolness of early dawn, she knew two things:

She wanted to keep him. And it had nothing to do with any game. It was pure want of his laughter, his attention, his time. It was personal now, in a way it hadn't ever been before.

And because of that, she had to let him go.

There'd only been the risk of emotion once in her life before this. Once. It had been allowing herself to kiss Leon Kennedy in the bowels of Raccoon City. Young, a little scared, and impossibly sweet - he'd called to something in her she'd hidden under the surface of ambition. She'd let him in the moment she'd picked him up off the floor of the RPD station instead of letting him lie in his own blood and die.

He'd leapt in front of bullet for her. And the shot through the heart had been hers after all.

She'd fled from him and escaped falling. It had been close. And she'd sworn off emotion since that moment.

And yet here she was, balanced on the edge of a precarious, poisonous position. Because she wanted to keep things casual and she enjoyed a powerful man in her bed. But it wasn't casual. Not anymore.

Why? And which of them had started to break the rules to put them here?

The rules were in place for a reason. This was the reason. Her hand traced over his chest, moving up and down peacefully in sleep now, it memorized the line of his face, the spill of his hair, the edge of his arm. She mapped his skin with her nails, with her eyes, and she pressed her mouth to his because she had to, had to. Just a little. Just that one time.

He was sleeping. He wouldn't know. It harmed nothing to do it.

She could leave now, in the middle of the night, and he'd never know. She should, she thought, she should leave.

Instead, she rolled into him and played with his body to bring him awake. Soft, he was almost delicate in her hands. She knew the moment he came awake. Because the sweet softness of his body turned hard and velvety in her milking grip.

The simple surprise of it drew his eyes open. Lord, she mused, beautifully silver in the dark. Those eyes of his were beautiful. And so full of everything. Didn't he understand how to lie? Didn't he understand how to FAKE? Why did he have to be such a fucking boyscout? Why did the pleasure of her have to perfectly written over every feature on his face?

Why did he have to make this so hard?

Although, to be fair, she was the one currently making him hard.

She breathed, softly, "What do you see when you look at my face?"

His hand lifted, slid against her cheek and pulled her forward. She went, spilling atop him and then around him as he rolled her to her back and leaned above her. She raised a hand and skimmed the shaggy spill of his hair off his brow.

Chris answered, quietly, "What kind of question is that?"

Ada shifted and raised her knee. It put him against her, pressed the naked length of their bodies together. It pleased her to feel the contrast in them. She was smooth and soft. He was hard and hairy. It thrilled and outlined something else she enjoyed about their coupling. He was very dense, overtly male, and the springy spread of his groin and chest delighted her in a sheer feminine way.

So, she mused, "Once you could barely look at me without seeing what the bitch with my face had done to you."

His hands cupped her face, thumbs sweeping the smoothness of her cheeks. "It was your face, Ada. But it wasn't you."

"Wasn't it?" She wondered, watching his eyes in the dark.

Chris shook his head, gently. "No. Whatever else is true, you're not evil, Ada. You're not bad. Not where it matters. Not when it matters."

"Don't do that, Chris. Don't see me with blinders on. I'm, first and foremost, entirely about me. You have to know that about me. I will, almost always, put myself first."

They held gazes. And then she rubbed her groin against his and watched it hood in his eyes.

And the power she'd been missing floated right there in the need of him.

She could push now and take it back...but she wanted to hear his answer.

"There's nothing wrong with being protective of yourself, Ada. Nothing. But you went down into that lab to save Piers. You came onto that beach to save me. You put yourself in harms way more than once to protect Sherry and Jake. How many times did you risk yourself for Leon over the years?"

Ada said nothing, watching his face as he watched hers. His was full of so many things. Hers?

Blank and cool...but her hands stroked his back like a lover.

"I have reasons for everything I do, Chris. Everything. Don't make me a hero...or you'll only be courting disappointment."

"I don't think you're a hero, Ada. I think you're a person who does a lot of lying. To everyone you meet." He dropped his face close to hers. Their lips brushed as he spoke. "To yourself. What do I see when I look at you?"

Her hands smoothed down and slid over his ass, angling him against her body to rub him there. It brought both of their mouths open on a pant of excitement. And he finished, smoothly, "I see a woman used to winning...afraid to lose to her own feelings."

A good answer.

A bad answer.

Because he wore his truth like a weapon that he used to destroy her. She didn't want his truth, any more than she wanted to feel legitimate emotion for him. That wasn't part of this. It couldn't be.

She had rules for a reason.

This was one of them.

But she breathed, "And what am I feeling?"

He whispered back, "...me."

And he was right about that too.

She should leave him. She should leave this. It was time.

And yet she breathed, "I want to feel more of you...take me."

She watched it echo on his face. He shifted enough that he slid inside of her and her mouth spilled open on a gasp. Eager, she thought madly, he was always so eager to please her.

Against her mouth, he whispered his last admission, "Are you afraid to let me all the way inside of you, Ada? Or are you afraid that I'm already there?"

Her voice was hoarse, delighting him, "You're already inside me."

"Am I?" He shifted, slid in and out and stole her breath, "I am. Maybe I am. But what if I want to get in here?"

His hand slid over her chest. It skimmed her breast. And it settled over her heart.

Jesus.

She wanted to protest. She wanted to push away. She wanted to pull him closer.

But her body wanted what he offered more.

She needed the power back. She grabbed his face and hissed, "Enough. Fuck me."

And he did that too. No denying. Obedience.

He was almost perfect..if he'd just stop trying to love her.

They came together smooth and wet, needy and raw. As Claire and her lover found their way in the dark to the beginning of something beautiful, Ada Wong found her way with the other Redfield in the dark to the end of something painfully perfect.

She had rules for a reason.

She had rules to protect herself from this.

She had rules...and she didn't break them for anyone.

He'd broken them. He'd pushed his way inside of her. There were no second chances for that.

They rolled across the bed in a flurry of skin and need. It was fast, like lightning and loss. He spilled her to her belly and mounted her from behind. And he curled against her back while he loved her.

Because that's what it was, she thought madly, he loved her. The bastard. He wore it all over him like that sweater she'd plucked from his body.

Love.

It was against the rules.

He finished wetly, thumbing and working her body while he plunged into the heat of her. His fucking was as painfully perfect as he was. Damn him. He brought her with him, thrusting back against the surge of his possession. They came together with sounds of need; grunts and gasps and moans.

Chris spilled to his side on the bed shaking and spent. He laughed a little, scratching his sweaty chest. He figured, not bad for forty fucking years old. What was it about this woman that made him able to fuck more often then a horny teenage boy?

Ada curled against the headboard for a moment as her body quaked and finished.

And then she rose and dressed in the dark.

She heard him shift as she was putting on her boots.

"Ada? What is it?"

"I have to go."

He shifted, the sheets falling around his chest as he sat up. "Hold on. Wait. What's the matter?"

She shook her head and moved, heading out of the bedroom. She heard him rise and follow her.

"We're done. This is done."

"Ada, hold on. What's going on here?"

He was watching her in the moonlight now from the windows that were his wall. He was so wonderful in just a pair of sweat pants he'd thrown on. She wanted to climb atop his body like a desperate spider, spin a web around him to bind him, and keep him forever. Damn him.

Instead, she shook her head at him. "No second chances, remember?"

She turned toward the door. "It's better this way. For both of us."

"Hold on, damnit, Ada!" He followed her out into the hallway as she hit the button the elevator. "Fuck the fucking rules."

She might have escaped without anything else ruining it. She might have…but he put his hand on her arm to stall her.

She turned into him, turned toward him. He felt her push him hard against the wall and let her. She was a bundle of emotion, a storm, slim and wonderful and intoxicating. She grabbed his face and drew him to her. Overwhelmed, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her against him.

It was pure greed, pure need, pure want. Her feet dangled as she put her teeth to his throat and suckled like a vampire; her fingers fisted in his hair. He reversed their positions, pressing her against the wall. Her mouth ate along his chest, tongue taking, lips tasting and stealing his breath. He thought his brains might have fallen out his ass somewhere along the way as well. He'd never felt this much emotion from her. Ever.

It was like holding a live wire in his hands. No matter who moved, they were both going to fry.

His hands were already pulling her back toward the apartment.

The elevator pinged and opened.

Ada pulled away, shaking herself. "No. I have to go."

He leaped onto the elevator after her at the last second. She lifted a hand at him. "Don't. I mean it."

He pressed her back against the wall of it, caught her face, and tried to kiss her. She pushed at his chest, shoved. "Stop it."

He backed off, just a bit.

And then she grabbed him to pull him back to her.

They spilled hands all over each other like horny beasts. His mouth spilled over her cheek, brushed against hers. He kept trying to kiss her. DAMN HIM. This was why it had to be over.

She pushed him away. "Stop it! Damnit! I said no kissing."

"For fuck's sake, Ada, stop being a coward." Him and his truth, she thought desperately, always the weapon to wound her.

Chris caught her around the waist and picked her up, dangling her feet again. She wrapped her arms around his waist and slid them down to grip his ass. She ground their bodies together and had him stumbling and bumping into the wall. She felt like the top of her head had blown off and taken all her reason with it.

Her hands touched him, memorized him, made him insane for wanting her. He moved backward, slapping random buttons again on the elevator panel to take them back upstairs. Her hands were in his pants now, taunting and making him lose his mind.

He echoed her, pushing his hand into her leggings to seek out of the root of her. She gasped, slapped him away even as she bowed into him. Crude, she thought madly, he was so crude. He was fingering her in an elevator like a randy kid.

There was nothing of Ada Wong left here.

Just a woman desperate for Chris Redfield.

THIS WAS WHY THERE WERE RULES.

They bumped into the corner of the elevator, both of them panting and gasping. They were playing with each other maddeningly. She kept bucking into his hand, he kept humping into hers. It was bad.

BAD.

She pushed away, flushed and shaking. She was losing control.

It was time to be done here.

"No! Just…stop it. No."

"Jesus Christ, Ada. You can't say that to a man who's dick you've got in your hand."

He was right. Dear god! She let him go and pulled away completely. Horrified that he'd put her in this position. Wait. No. That SHE'D put herself in this position. She pushed at him.

"You…you…leave me alone!"

"Wait..what? You keep jumping me!"

"I…shut up!" Oh he was right. That was lowering. It was shaming. It couldn't really be true, could it? She opened her mouth to protest and the doors pinged open.

They were at the lobby level.

She got off the elevator. She tried to regain what little dignity she had left.

"Ada!" He reached out for her as the doors started to close and she met his eyes and hated this feeling…this…regret.

But she said, "Chris…it's better this way. The rules...they exist for a reason."

The pain on his face...she'd never forget it.

He whispered, "Fuck your fucking rules...don't do this, Ada. I mean it."

"Goodbye...Mr. Redfield."

The doors pinged shut.

Ada put a hand to her chest and breathed.

It was better. Better. BETTER. THIS is why she didn't do feelings. THIS.

She had to be in control. Otherwise? Chaos.

She'd been in chaos before she'd come from nothing to become Ada Wong. The girl she'd been once had existed in chaos. She wouldn't go back there. Not for anyone. Not for anything.

Not for Umbrella or The Organization. Not for Neo Umbrella, Spencer, the BSAA or Simmons. Not for Albert Wesker and not for his greatest enemy.

No matter how much part of her wanted...to OWN that enemy.

There was power in denial as well. He would chase her now. He would crave her.

She was back in control.

Her face reflected back from the empty windows of the building...she was back in control.

It was the first time the victory of that rang hollow for her. Ada Wong wasn't often a woman given to failure. The bitch in red never left a mission unfinished.

Only relationships, it seemed.

Because that's what this was...that's what he was...unfinished.

And mired in regret.

She whispered, softly and filled with more feeling than she'd ever shown another living soul, "I'm so sorry, Chris...Merry Christmas."

Staring out over the endless piles of snow, Chris Redfield was colder than the New York skyline...and he couldn't think of one he'd enjoyed less...in a long, long, long time.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: We touch on our other heroes here. And go AU on what happens to Sherry. She's not been under Simmons thumb all this time in this version. Why? Because I wrote this originally BEFORE 6 came out. And I gave her whatever backstory I wanted. So there ya go. I tweaked it a bit after 6 to shine light on things. But I've left her backstory the same. It helps explain the love story there.

Slainte!  
...

Chapter 8: Regression  
....

"Egress - obsess - she tried to take it back. But the pain of the departure left her desperate, and mired in her own misery."  
.....

New York, January  
...

"Yoko, do you think he's ready?"

Claire hesitated, watching Piers with the children down in the snowy garden outside the hospital. They were laughing and throwing snowballs. They were rushing him to take him to his back in the drifting white. Snow angels were everywhere...as was laughter...and hope.

It was so painful to believe in it.

Beside her, Yoko Suzuki was smiling. She was the best in the world when it came to trauma. She'd put him back together and helped guide him back to himself. She'd survived Raccoon City and become someone who never left that kind of nightmare stop anyone else, again, from living their life to the fullest. She'd dedicated herself to the recovery of those who seemed hopeless, helpless, and lost.

She was hoping Piers Nivans wasn't lost.

Her gaze passed from the laughing boy with the children to the man on the bench some meters away.

Where one Redfield seemed to be encouraging, the other was flagging. Chris Redfield never wavered. He showed up twice a week, he visited, he kept Piers in good spirits. But his own were sad.

Yoko could see the grief of something painful around him like a cloud. She wondered if his sister could see it as well.

But she answered the redhaired girl beside her, calmly, "Is he ready to leave the hospital permanently?"

Claire nodded, eagerly. In the garden, a little girl tackled Piers to his back while he laughed bright and loud. She put her hand to her mouth to hold in the small sound of happiness. He was so free out there. So free. In a way she'd never seen him. Children, she mused, were what gave him life again.

Children...and her.

Yoko sighed a little, shifting in the snow. The little hat she wore dipped on her brow, offering a hint of black hair beneath the white wool, "Depends on how you approach him, Claire. Is he ready physically? Yes. He's been ready for months. Is he ready emotionally?"

She shrugged, watching him, "He's tender still. A nudge could set him off. A nudge could set him free. It's delicate."

Claire nodded a little. She glanced from the laughter to the bench and frowned. Her brother.

He sat in the cold smoking.

His face was thin beneath the beard he wore. He'd lost weight. He seemed angry. The anger didn't surprise her. In the time since China, he'd been angry plenty. But for a brief moment...he'd also been happy. Where was the happy?

What had happened?

But she knew.

OF COURSE SHE KNEW.

ADA -mother fucking - Wong.

Irritated, Claire sighed a little. She started forward and was surprised when Yoko beat her to it. The little woman crossed the snow and took up a spot on the bench beside him.

Chris glanced at her beneath his heavy blue beanie cap. Her dark eyes were lost behind little red sunglasses. His were obscured by polarized Oakleys in yellow.

Yoko spoke first, surprising him, "Whoever she is, she isn't worth all this pouting."

Amused now, his mouth lifted in a smile, "No?"

"No." She turned a little, crossing her little boots, "She is a dumb woman. You are better off without her. And you are too smart of a man to sit here pining for someone stupid enough to let you go."

"That so?"

"It is. I'm a doctor. You have to take my medical advice."

"And what's your medical advice?"

Yoko considered and finally took his cigarette. She took a little puff and it curled between them. "I'm afraid it's too complex to tell you all of it now, Mr. Redfield. You need to take me to dinner and I'll explain the entire course of treatment."

They held glasses.

His mouth twitched. "Doctor's orders?"

Hers echoed it. "Indeed."

And he laughed. "Well, how can I say no?"

On the snowy hill, Claire felt her eyebrows wing up. Piers came up beside her, toting a laughing child under each arm. He was huffing and grinning and flushed. She touched his face and kissed him, softly.

He grinned at her, "Everything ok?"

She studied her laughing brother. She studied the laughing children in his arms. He looked so calm. Was he ready?

Was she?

Maybe it was time to find out.

So Claire said, quietly, "You know what? I think it will be. I really, really do."  
....

Russia, January  
...

The screams were horrible. They filled the night with their endless litany of desolation. It raked across the body in claws of continuous destruction.

They started in the lab and spread through the building like a virus. A virus…a deadly creation meant to create monsters. And so it had. And so it did.

And the monsters awakened. And the monsters hungered.

And the monsters began to feed.  
....

Montana, January  
....

The mistress of pain was a merciless, mindless, soul raping, skin torturing bitch with three heads that liked to fuck you up, fuck you over, and piss on your bones. He knew this, had always known this, had always felt this. But he kept playing her game anyway because the result was so damn good. He felt the slings and arrows of her touch here, in the great wide open, more than anywhere else. Because he couldn't stay, couldn't. And wanted nothing more.

The spread of the Rocky Horse Ranch spread over countless acres of beautiful, rich, fertile land and sky. There was no real end and no real beginning to it. The Kennedy family had owned it since the country had gone from undiscovered, to populated. It had changed hands as time had brought it from generation to generation and now rested in the hands of the Senator's son, the former right hand of the President, the head of the office now known as the DSO – which was essentially a black ops division of the Secret Service.

The DSO didn't exist. It was funded, privately, by the private sector of the government bent on the dissolution of terrorist threat both foreign and domestic. The methods weren't publicly approved. The ideology was still righteous but with limits. For the good of the people took on a whole new meaning when you were staring down at a prisoner and waiting for the right answers.

He'd picked up the hatchet to take off the tip of those fingers more than once. He'd been the man with no soul more than once. The social circle that surrounded him found him charming, pleasant, intelligent and sincere. He doubted they would think so if they saw him splattered with the blood of a bio-terrorist in mid interrogation. Of course one thing remained true, he might be splattered in the blood of the enemy, but at least the blood was covering Armani.

Even now, standing on the porch of the ranch house in the middle of nowhere, he was dressed flawlessly. The jeans were Diesel, the t-shirt Calvin Klein, the jacket Hugo Boss. He didn't do flannel and man of the mountain. But if he'd had to, he'd have rocked that look too. There were few men on the planet as handsome as Leon Kennedy and even less that hid the skill and determination of a well paid killer behind it.

He moved toward the sound of hoof beats to find the Ranch manager, Gil, riding up toward him. Gil was mid-fifties and slighty over weight with a shock of red, red, red hair and a bushy beard. He was dressed in flannel and leather and had a belt buckle with two horses in rodeo. Gil was a man of the mountain.

"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle!" He leaped from the horse and moved quickly to give Leon a hard, one armed hug. "You didn't tell me you were comin boy! I'd have had Sara cook up something good for dinner."

"It was last minute really. I'd had some time off. Wanted to see how the winter was going up here."

"Great! Great! The harvest went really well in the fall. And we had to take on three extra hands to absorb the extra work. I just talked to your Daddy about it the other day actually. I'm surprised he didn't tell ya."

Well he wouldn't have. Leon wasn't surprised. His "Daddy" was the Senator of the great state of Massachusetts. Very right wing, very conservative. And although he was a versatile and talented man, he wasn't much of a father and hadn't ever really been. Leon had been raised in boarding schools or by nannies or at the Academy. He was a legacy, a title, and hadn't even bothered to fulfill that legacy by following his father into politics. He was a great disappointment to the Senator.

"We haven't had much occasion to chat lately."

Gil studied that handsome profile with a sense of the old hurt behind the blasé tone. He'd known Leon since he was a little boy. He'd spent many summers here learning the land and the ropes. He was pretty much the child Sara and Gil had always wanted and couldn't have. And when he'd needed a place for the child he'd found in Raccoon City to live, Sara and Gil had taken her in as well.

The last twelve years they'd raised Sherry Birkin as their own. And Leon had paid for the whole thing. He'd never asked for anything but that they show her love. "No boarding schools," He told them, the moment he'd shown up on the porch with her, "No nannies."

Sara, who'd always wanted children, who'd help raise the man before her, had taken a look at the scrawny, beautiful, sad little urchin with her shaggy blonde hair and quit her job the next day. She'd become a stay at home mother and put Sherry and her needs first and foremost.

Twice Leon Kennedy had blessed them with a child to love. And now he'd become a man and the girl, a woman, and Gil couldn't be happier. He and Sara hadn't been blessed to have their own but they still had children. Maybe not by blood but by something so much more important.

Putting his tongue in his cheek, Gil said, carefully, "Well…the Senator is always aware of what's going on around you."

"Right."

"I ain't gonna tell you he's the best Daddy, god knows that ain't true," Gil struck up a cigarette and inhaled, deeply, "But he did the best by you he knew how. Someday you'll appreciate that."

"I appreciate it. But it doesn't make me love him." Leon turned his head and listened, he heard the laughter first. "Sherry is home as well."

"Yep. Gotta a break from work herself. Flew in to see how we were doing."

Leon followed him off toward the barn. "Will it complicate things if I stay in the house too then?"

"'Course not. Sherry loves it when you're here. And there's plenty of room."

The barn was filled with the clean smell of hay and horses. The laughter lead them toward the office built into the back.

Sherry stood in riding gear, jodhpurs in pale beige tucked into knee high black boots, a little black jacket that hit at the waist with a furred hood. Pale pink peaked out of the partially zipped front from the collared shirt she wore beneath. Her short blonde hair was expertly cut and maintained in a pretty pixie, highlighting her lovely face. She wore no make up, she wasn't much for it and never had been. But she didn't need it. She had good genes from both her parents and was beautiful for it.

She caught his eyes as they moved forward and laughed with delight. "Leon!"

He caught her in a hug and brought the scent of her into him. He realized he'd missed her. They hadn't seen each other in quite some time. What had happened in China had been so brief, so fast. And it had been nearly five years since he'd seen her before that. He regretted the little time he had to spend with her as she got older.

He knew she worked with Claire, for Terra Save now, in some capacity as an advisor. He knew she'd brought Wesker's son into the fold as well. She was somewhat of a field agent when it was necessary.

Part of him wished she'd avoided this life. That she'd married, had children, and grown up to be something safe and simple. But here she was and she was good at what she did and he was proud of her.

"Look at you," He smiled down into her face as she squeezed him, "Getting too old for your own good kid."

Sherry laughed a little and hated this moment. Would he never see what the rest of the world did? Would he never see she was a woman now? He was only a decade older then her. But sometimes she got the feeling he might think of her like a daughter or something. It was annoying.

He thirty five now, she knew. And still hadn't married. And she wondered if he'd ever figure out what she'd known for thirteen years. That she was crazy, completely, utterly in love with him. He looped a companionable arm over her shoulders as she drew back.

"I've missed you." He said it with such honest sincerity. And part of her hated that it was said with what might be brotherly affection.

"I've missed you too." And hers was said with boiling, burning love. She'd come out here to get away from the need that festered in her for him. She'd always loved him, always. As a girl it had been dreamy, sweet, and hero worship. As she'd grown and spent summers with him, it had become real and painful.

The summer of her eighteenth birthday, he'd just taken the job as President Graham's bodyguard. He'd come home one last time to celebrate. She'd thrown on her best party dress, fixed her long, long blonde hair into curls and glory, and tried her best to entice him.

And then she'd come around the corner of the barn and saw him on the phone. It was a facetime chat of some kind. A conference call with someone in his agency. The girl on the phone was pretty, yes, but she was talking about a woman. And showing pictures of the woman. Some tall thing with black hair cut short and pretty in red.

The look on his face had been what Sherry had always hoped she'd see for her. It was something painful and denied. He looked at the pictures of that woman like Sherry had always looked at him. And her heart broke. It shattered.

That next day she'd gone and gotten all her hair cut off. Part of her hated that she did it thinking maybe he liked the short hairstyle of the other woman. Part of her did it because no longer did she have to pretend to be a girly girl. Clearly that wasn't going to entice him.

She joined up with Terra Save after college and tried to move on from the idea of him. He disappeared for great periods of time on missions. He wasn't there at Christmas anymore and didn't call like he'd used to. Life moved forward. And the woman in the picture, Ada Wong, popped up one day as a bad guy and everything went down with Simmons and the clones.

Undigging from that mess had taken awhile. Sherry had met Jake and they had engaged in some kind of awkward and brief flirtation. She'd let him be her first lover. Why not? Saving herself for Leon wasn't doing anyone any good. It had gone well for a few months and then he'd been sent on assignment some place she couldn't follow and the relationship had dissolved naturally.

And now she was here and he was here and it maybe it was finally time to push it. Maybe it was finally time to lay it all out there.

Last time she'd heard, Ada Wong had been working for the BSAA. She didn't think he'd seen her in awhile. Maybe he had. Maybe they were rocking the bed sheets every night. But it didn't matter. She was going to take her shot. Now or never.

"Let's go for a ride."

And so they did. He was good on a horse, smooth. But he was good at everything so that was no surprise. He rode the animal with the same grace he did everything else. Some women would find that kind of perfection tiring. Sherry found it wonderful.

They rode along the bank of the creek until they reached the place where the old fort still stood. It was built there by Leon and some of the boys that he'd played with growing up. Sherry and her friends had also made a home out of it in her time spent being raised by Gil and Sara. It was a legend, in one hand, the sight of countless imaginative battles and tea parties and sieges.

It was a dilapidated tree house and a couple tire swings. It was sticks and twine and old pieces of rusty cars. It was built by luck and patience and happy kids with big imaginations. It was always worth seeing and coming back to. And kids would continue to play it even after all the world grew up around them.

She slipped onto the tire swing and he began to push her, gently.

"How's things kid?"

"Great." She sighed a little at the beauty of the coming evening. The setting sun had gilded the horizon a burnt yellow and orange. Soon the sky would look like blood and gold. What was life without a little blood and gold? Two precious things.

"Killed any zombies lately?"

He laughed and settled onto the swing beside her. She wondered if anyone else alive had ever seen Leon Kennedy on a tire swing.

"I was planning to do that after dinner."

Sherry pushed her feet against the ground and they swung in silence for a few moments. "What brings you here Leon?"

"I could ask you the same kid."

Sherry shrugged. "I had a break from work. So here I am."

"Same."

And life was too short. So screw it, she thought, and stopped swinging to face him. "How's Ada?"

His swing came to an abrupt stop itself. "What?"

"I said: How's Ada? You know, Ada Wong? Your girlfriend."

He faced her and his expression was priceless. It was both calm and tumultuous at the same time. It was the face of a man who hadn't seen this coming at all. She'd surprised the Iceman. Not many could say the same.

He had many names amongst the community. The Iceman, the Ghost, the Executioner. He was known in circles by different names. But she knew him only as her hero, as her unrequited love. He was the man who'd saved her in Raccoon City, who'd offered her this chance here in Montana to live again. He had stood between death and her in Japan and would again, and again, if she only asked.

"Ada isn't my girlfriend."

"But you want her to be."

He eyed Sherry, trying to find out what her angle was with this conversation. He was a master at reading people, in his job, you had to be. But she had always crossed signals with him. He was never quite sure where she stood.

"It's more complicated than that."

"Doesn't have to be." Sherry slid off her swing. "Do you love her?"

He lifted a brow, studying her face. Where was she going with this? She appeared to be an angry little pixie in tight riding pants. Why was she angry? Had she ever even met Ada?

"I don't know here. Not really. So the question of love is irrelevant."

"Oh stop talking like a robot!" She whipped around, stalking a line back and forth in front of him. He watched her, rather like watching a tiger pace. She was all nerves and energy. It was fascinating.

"What's the real issue here Sherry?"

Sherry shook her head, hard. Stopped, seemed to be thinking something very, very important..or was possibly crazy. He wasn't a girl so he couldn't really figure out what the hell she was thinking in that little head of hers. She turned to him and gave him the evil eye.

"Are you stupid?"

Well that was certainly a loaded question. He had an IQ of 140. He'd been taught by some of the most prolific professors and teachers in the world. He was literate, cognitive, calm and patient, kind, considerate, good in a fight. He was physically impressive – working his body in a rigorous and controlled manner to maintain top physical shape. He was studious and organized and good under pressure. He'd been taught to box and fence and was a crack shot. He could whip the asses of almost anyone in the world in various styles of martial arts. He was a machine, a trained assassin, a natural mediator.

But he had to agree in this moment, he must be stupid. Because he had no idea what she was getting at here.

Sherry moved toward him and every instinct in his body had him wanting to retreat. It was almost laughable. He'd faced down a crocodile the size of a bus, a whole town full of chain saw wielding psychos, a series of creatures from the black lagoon, and the apocalypse…twice. But he was afraid of this little blonde thing that weighed a buck ten soaking wet.

She slipped her hands into his hair and tilted his head back. He went very still, looking up at her from the perch on the swing. Sherry scooped her gloved fingers through his hair and then, irritated, pulled the gloves off and tossed them aside. She wanted to feel if that hair was as soft as it looked.

It was. Silky. It somehow was cut in a way that it simply always looked beautiful and touchable…and untouchable. He was such a contradiction. The vibe of "don't touch" flashed warnings all around him. She wondered if any woman, ever, had gotten passed it. How did someone look like this, like walking sex, and not have women throwing themselves at him?

But maybe he did, she mused. Maybe he had a hundred lovers. A thousand. Maybe he was balls deep in some bimbo every night of the week. What did she really know about him? He wouldn't let anyone, anywhere close enough to find out.

And she knew, knew, it was against his personal code for her to touch him like this. He was stiff, rigid with it while she did. She could practically see him planning his escape.

She brushed a hand through his hair, rubbed a strand of that silky stuff between two fingers. Her hands shifted to trace the five o'clock shadow that graced his cheeks and she bravely whisked one thumb over the plumpness of his lower lip. She watched that gesture turn the blue of his eyes to glacial. She could almost see the armor going up, the Iceman putting up that wall between them.

He started to stand and she tightened her hold on his face, stalling him.

"Sherry." It was said low, with warning.

"Are you stupid?" She asked again. "Are you? I always figured you were too busy. Too blind. Maybe you saw me as your sister. Or, worse, your daughter. But now I think maybe you're just stupid."

He rose now with a jerk and she stepped back from him. Because he didn't look cold, he looked angry.

"Be careful here Sherry. I'll admit I'm not sure where this is coming from. But be careful."

"Or what?" She tilted her head, feeling the hard and fast beat of her heart, "You'll hurt me? You won't. Not me. So your threats don't work here. Answer the question."

He started to turn away and she grabbed his jacketed arm, holding him in place. He looked at her hand with something like shock. What? He didn't think she'd grab him? Didn't he realize she was done being safe?

"You don't get to run. No. Answer me."

"What is this? What do you want?"

Now or never, she thought, torn somewhere between throwing up in nervous fear and running away screaming. Now or never. She stepped toward him, ignoring the alarm bells in her head when he tried to back away, his back bumped up against the willow tree where the tree house dangled, listlessly hanging on with hope and good luck.

She had the Iceman trapped against a tree. She had the Executioner scared like a little girl had been once in the bowels of the police station in Raccoon City. She grabbed handfuls of his collar.

And, stupid or not, he finally saw what was coming. He said, quietly, "Don't."

But it was now or never. She pressed against him, went on tip toe to lift herself up, closed her eyes and moved in.

His mouth was cold, the tip of his nose cool from the coming spring evening. He didn't move, not a muscle. She pressed their lips together, once, twice. And her pounding heart was so loud she could hear it in her ears. Could he? Could he hear it beating?

Sherry didn't give up, she pressed on. She softly pressed her lips to the side of his mouth, the left, and then the right. "Kiss me back. Don't be stupid." She brushed their noses together. "Kiss me back."

Her left hand shifted, slid inside the jacket to brush over the beat of his heart. And it was hard, fast, and nervous. Good, she thought, good. Not so much an iceman after all.

She opened her eyes and his were locked on her, wide, and very, very blue.

"Kiss me back," She said it again, the arches of her feet starting to cramp from too long on point. "Please."

Maybe it was the please. Or maybe it was just feeling sorry for her. Or maybe it was insanity or boredom or guilt. But he cupped her face now and her heart felt like it might explode out of her.

And he kissed her back.

Soft, sweet, and chaste. It was the kiss you might see in a Disney movie. It was a princess and prince and a moonlit summer night. It was gentle. And kind. And something in it made her so angry. And so ashamed. Because he didn't close his eyes when it happened. He didn't sweep her against him and steal her breath.

He just pressed a kiss to her mouth that was almost…brotherly.

Sherry stepped back, pressed a hand to her mouth.

And she didn't like the look on his face. What was that? Sympathy? Regret?

"Don't." She lifted a hand now to him. "You are stupid."

And she turned, leaped onto her horse, and rode back toward the ranch.

Leon blew out a breath of air that puffed white in the waiting cold. Yep. Stupid.

And he muttered, rolling his neck and his eyes to boost the uselessness of it all, "...fucking women."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Liberation

"Mired, murdered - she bled and begged. She ached and arched. And waited to feel the cleave of need once more."

New York, February

The spirit of Valentines Day was like a noxious gas. It infected and fed off its own misery causing those who came in contact with it to become ill and begin to perish from the infection. The V-virus was to single people what T had been to Raccoon City. But there was no hope of enforced sterilization.

He put another bullet through the head of the fat cherub that was winking at him from the end of the firing range. Cupid was not a fat baby. Nope. He was a handsome, virile, desperate MAN and he was chasing after Psyche – the beautiful, unattainable, BITCH whom he couldn't ever really have. Cupid was an idiot.

Chris put two more through his smiling face for good measure.

"You got something about cherubic babies with wings?"

He met Barry Burton's solemn face as he pulled off his range muffs and slapped them down on the counter in front of him. "Fat bastard. Where's the joy? Somebody else must be getting it all."

Barry leaned one broad shoulder against the booth, studying him.

"You gonna tell me who's under your skin?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Red, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret," Barry crossed his arms over his chest, "I might be a little older then you."

Chris eyed him drolly.

"And I just might know a thing or two about women."

Barry had been married to the same woman for nearly thirty years. It was probable he knew more then a thing or two about women. Although he was something of a work house, the guy seemed to have a steady marriage. His daughters had some problems with him but what kids loved their parents all the time?

Chris sighed a little and shifted. The range was quiet. Of course it was quiet. Everyone was off at dinner with their respective sweeties. He was the only fool lingering behind at the shooting range at eight o'clock on Valentines Day. Well him..and Barry.

"Shouldn't you be home with that wife of yours?"

"We've been together long enough to realize romance don't need a day." Barry moved with him toward the front room of the range. "This about Jill?"

Surprised, Chris eyed him again. "Why would it be? She's still in Thailand on assignment."

"True. I figured you might be missing her."

"I always miss her when she's gone." What was it with people and him and Jill? They weren't a thing. Hadn't been any kind of a thing in a long time. She was his best friend, true, but that's all it was. At least for him. He hadn't thought of her as more than that in a long, long time.

"You seein somebody else?"

"No." And that was true. "There was someone, briefly. But she tossed me out with the garbage a few months ago."

"Ah." He eyed the boy as they slipped on their coats. "You know where she's at tonight?"

"Probably the gala opening for the Kennedy Foundation."

Leon Kennedy had managed to get his father to back the need for proper funding for terrorist torn countries over seas. A foundation had been resurrected to help with refugees and support allocating resources to provide housing and protection. There was a kick off gala for it happening at the Heisemann Gallery in SoHo.

Everyone who was anyone was there. He was betting Ada was there. Probably not alone. Probably not concerned about where he was. And he wanted to be ok with that. He wasn't mad at her, not really. She'd never pretended to be something other then what she was to him. But it didn't mean he'd been ready to let her go.

He still itched to touch her.

"Well then maybe you should be where she is."

"I don't think she wants me there."

"I'm guessing you won't really know unless you go down there and find out."

Chris decided he just might be right. Screw it. At the very least they'd get some closure from each other. If they could at least face each other without it feeling like the great wide world was going to swallow them whole, it would be a start. She had avoided him for months now.

She took her orders from Inga without ever seeing his face. That's what hurt the most. That she couldn't even look him in the eye. She probably thought he was pathetic. A hopeless, hapless romantic that would beg her to come back to him. He hated thinking she just may be right.

Each mile he drove toward the gallery strengthened his anger. He handed his keys to the valet and alighted. He was under dressed in a pair of jeans and his parka. The valet gave him a snooty look as he took the keys.

"The gallery has a dress code sir."

Chris eyed the skinny little shit with the same disdain. "I give a flying fuck about the dress code."

He pushed through the glass doors into the lobby of the big building. The whole thing was an architectural marvel. It was four stories of glass and steel. There was nothing left to the imagination beyond those spotless walls.

The lobby was decorated in red and silver and black, balloons, arrows, twinkling lights and giant red blooms. The place looked like someone had cut themselves and splashed their blood from floor to ceiling. His boots smooshed rose petals beneath them as he moved across the lobby.

A waiter tried to stop him. "Sir! Sir! This is a formal event! You can't come in here dressed like that sir!"

"He can wear anything he damn well pleases."

Chris turned, smiling. Leon crossed toward him looking like a million dollars in a tuxedo that was likely as expensive as some people made in a month. It was black and the vest beneath a splash of blue. His hair was, as always, perfect and his handshake, smooth.

"Chris Redfield."

"Leon. You look like some woman's idea of James Bond."

"You look like you got lost on your way home from Bass Pro Shop."

They embraced, one armed, as men often do. They were like brothers. Their time spent together in China had bonded them together. The former rookie was a helluva fisherman. And a surprisingly fantastic chef.

"Nice turn out."

"My father will be pleased." Leon waived away the next waiter who attempted to comment on the dress code. "Ignore the staff, they mean well."

"I was planning to."

"What brings you here?" He led Chris away from the central part of the lobby. "I didn't expect you."

"I'm looking for someone actually. I won't stay long. God knows what would happen if the wrong people saw me dressed like this."

Leon gestured to someone over his shoulder. "If you're looking for Claire, I saw her upstairs a little while ago. Should I send her down?"

"Sure. If you don't mind."

"Not at all. Would you be more comfortable waiting in the conference area? It's as private as you'll get. Party guests aren't allowed in there."

"Sure. Great. Thanks."

Chris separated himself and stepped into the conference room. It was glass as well but at least the wall between it and the lobby was solid. He settled into one of the wing back chairs and waited.

At the top of the stairs, Leon gently took Claire's elbow and seperated her from the donor's she was so perfectly courting. There was something soft and lovely about her lately. A contentness that looked good on her smooth skin and firey hair.

The blue gown she wore was flattering and beaded, covered in shimmery cloth, and tastefully low cut. The swell of her pretty cleavage enticed the eye and tantalized the senses. She'd come alone, to his surprise, and was cagey about why.

But he said, softly now, "Your brother is downstairs in the conference area."

Claire glanced at his face in surprise. "Why?"

"Hard to say. He seems anxious. He looks a little ragged, Claire. Even for him, he looks burnt out. Is he alright?"

Leon was asking her if her brother was sick. It was written all over his face. She touched the former rookie's arm to comfort him. "He's fine. Broken hearted. But fine. In fact...I know what he needs. Can you excuse me for a minute?"

"Of course."

"Thank you." She moved through the crowed until she found her target. The bitch in red wasn't in red tonight...but she was still a bitch. Chris wasn't getting over her. Not easily. And the question was why.

What had the woman done to ensnare him? Of course, what did she know really? Leon had been chasing the same bitch forever.

Claire corraled her by the display of Ancient Egyptian texts. They studied each other in the low lighting like rivals, or predators, or enemies. They were, of course, all three. Claire's dislike of her was palpable. And it wasn't hidden.

"My brother is downstairs."

Ada held her look, "I see."

"Fix it. Whatever you've done? Fix it. He's a good man. And you don't love him. So, let him go and stop fucking with his world."

The look held and Ada replied, smoothly, "I have let him go. It's him who keeps holding on."

Claire tilted her head a little, "Really? I saw you, Ada. Lingering outside his office the other night. Why didn't you go in? If you were done with him, it was easy enough to face him and open that door. Have you looked him in the eye once since you dropped him like a sack of garbage?"

Ada shifted where she stood. It was the only sign of discomfort. It was the only sign that she was indeed, guilty as charged.

"Advice on dating, Claire? Really? Where is your date for this evening? I'm assuming you never got him to leave the house."

Claire gave her a narrow look. "Different situations, Ada. Entirely. He's traumatized. He's trying. He didn't cut and run like a coward. But that's your MO, after all, you just run when things don't go your way. Once a bitch, always a bitch. Right? No matter who you hurt in the process. What's best for you and fuck the rest. Right?"

Ada shook her head a little. She quirked her mouth and passed by the redhead, saying quietly, "You don't know what you're talking about, Claire. And you're playing a game where the rules are never quite that simple. Be careful what you wish for here, or you might find yourself related to the bitch you so hatefully stand here taunting."

Claire gave her a murderous look. "What? You'd marry my brother just to spite me?"

Ada smiled slyly and winked, "Not just for that...but it would be such a wonderful bonus. Enjoy your evening, Ms. Redfield. And your lonely turns around the dance floor. I'll go see if your brother would like to dance with me..."

She put her mouth to Claire's ear and whispered, "And he can thank you for the pleasure of it. And bringing us back together."

Claire ground her teeth a little as the lithe spy sashayed away. She hated the smugness. She hated, even more, that the woman was right. Chris would take her back, no questions.

And she was right about Piers. He'd stood there half dressed and denied her. After all the gentle prodding. After all the hopeful excitement. He'd denied her.

And they'd had a wicked fight before she'd left to come here. She was still smarting from it.

He'd accused her of wanting to "force him to assimilate with all the normal people."

"Why can't you just accept that I'll never be like you again, Claire!? Why can't you just leave it alone!?"

It broke her heart that he thought she was so callous. That he thought she cared what other people thought. Having him come with her tonight wasn't about the rest of the world. It was about THEM. About her pride in being with him. It was about showing the world that she was proud to have him on her arm.

But his self hatred and panic had defeated him. He was cowering that little house alone again. A back slide she was afraid they might not recover from.

Her brother was downstairs broken hearted, waiting on a woman that would never love him the way he deserved.

His sister was upstairs afraid she was standing here waiting on a man that would never love himself the way he did.

It was a sad day for both of them.

The door opened after a few moments.

"I'm pretty sure the invite said black tie not black jacket."

He rose and turned. And hated how he felt seeing her there.

She was in black this time, regal, elegant and simple. A sheathe of black that hugged her body and showed her long legs to perfection. One shoulder and arm were laid bare, accented only by a gold bangle on her wrist. The other was encased in the same glorious black cloth. Twists of copper, gold, and silver dangled from her ears.

"I left my penguin suit at home."

"What are you doing here Chris?"

He crossed to her and she held her ground, though he could see retreat all over her pretty face.

"Tell me something…" She waited as he circled around her, like a shark scenting blood. "Do you really like this kinda thing? All these yuppies talking politics and foreign policy."

"I'm very good with foreign policy. And very good with people."

He was very close to her now and she could smell the enticing scent of gun powder and lead. He smelled a bit like fireworks. She hadn't laid eyes on him in so long. She found she was hungry for the sight of him. And her heart hurt a little that he'd done what he'd said he'd do, he let his beard grow in.

It was pleasing, dark, with just a suggestion of gray here and there. Much like his hair that was sprinkled in places with salt and pepper. She wanted to touch it and feel it, and rub her fingers over his chin and remember the texture of it.

"Why are you here Chris?"

"Why else? I wanted to see you."

She wished he'd simply made up a lie. Been flippant. Been anything but honest. His boy scout honesty made the ache in her turn to a nearly painful longing. The more she longed for him, the farther she withdrew.

"You broke the rules."

"No, Ada. We broke the rules. At least own up to your part in it."

"Alright. WE broke the rules. I can't be what you want, surely you see that."

"Don't tell me what I see. And don't tell me what I want."

He was getting angry. And that was good. She could handle this anger. Anger was great. It was predictable, in a way, and easily shut down. She turned on the ice to stop the fire. He could all but feel the chill spreading off her in waves.

"There are plenty of women who would love to be in love with you. I'm not one of them. I'm not a girl who sits around pining for a man, Chris. You know that."

"I know what I felt from you that night, Ada. Who are you fooling? That wasn't fucking. Or maybe it was. Maybe it was fucking. Maybe it was you getting fucked."

"We're done here."

He grabbed her arm, stopped her. "Tell me the truth and I'll stop. This will be the end. And I will never ask you for anything again."

"Alright."

"Tell me you don't want me anymore."

Ada met his eyes, held them. "It doesn't matter if I want you. That was never the problem."

"Tell me why the rules matter so much. Because I don't understand."

She gave him a long, silent look. Something warm and hard was building in her chest. It was a feeling she hadn't entertained in a long, long time. It was something soft and needy and real. And she hated it, hated him for putting it there, and hated herself for knowing it would likely never leave her again.

"I don't want to feel anything for you. Ever. And the more you push at me, the more I don't want to feel it. Stop crowding me. Stop smothering me!"

"You can't smother a person, Ada. You smother a pork chop." He tugged her a little toward him. She let him. Her hand slid against the smooth puff of the coat he wore. "It wasn't me groping you like a horny teenager in that elevator, Ada. There were TWO of us doing the smothering."

The fact that he was right was the final straw. She grabbed his jacket and shook him. "You grew your fucking beard out, you idiot."

"You asked me to!" He sounded exasperated.

"I know…I know! And I hate you for it." She turned into him as he jerked her into his arms. Hers came up to loop around his neck. The parka rushed smooth and soft between them. She felt his beard beneath her fingers, felt the brush of the sock hat he wore.

She studied him from inches away. The hard planes of his face. The soft spill of his lashes. How to explain it? How to make him see it? Finally, she tilted him down to her and whispered, "What will it take to show you? What?"

He wanted to feel her. Just a little. He unzipped the parka to pull the lithe line of her into the heat of it and against his body. They both shivered with the joy of it. What would it take, he wondered, to make him not want her anymore?

His hands slid down her back and over the curve of her bottom. He tugged her into him to rub against her and watched her face flush with the feeling of it. She hadn't let go of his face.

She finally breathed, "Ok. I'll show you. This. This is why we can't."

"What is?"

It was a bit like a deer in the headlights. He, literally, froze as she nudged his nose with hers. The soft press of her lips to his nearly killed him. The flutter of expectation trembled between them and he made a little sound.

She nuzzled again, waiting.

And it was enough waiting.

His hands shifted to take her tightly to him and his mouth plunged. She opened, surging to meet him, and they both made little hungry noises as they engaged in the greatest battle of tongues, lips, teeth, and taking that two people had ever waged.

He stole her breath with the kiss. They merged together, his thumbs bracketing her face, the dangle of her earrings cool against his hands.

It went on for several seconds before she drew away. They locked eyes for a long, tense moment. "This is why we can't. Do you understand?"

"I understand I can't really breathe without wanting you…Ada…tell me you don't feel the same." He nipped her swollen lips after he spoke, ensnaring her in a tangled web of want for him.

"I don't want to want you, Chris. Why can't you understand that?"

They kissed again, wet, smooth, needy. It was nearly desperate.

"I have to say goodbye. I have to."

"Ok. Ok. In a minute…Just…" He lifted her, set her down on the table; his hands scooped her hair back from her face. His mouth and hers fused, retreated, fused again. Both of their eyes stayed locked. "What scares you the most here, Ada?"

"That you'll make me crave something that I know I don't want. I'm not the type who falls in love and gets married and raises babies, Chris. You know that."

"You think I am?"

"Yes. I think you are. I think you are indeed. I think you are desperate for it. I can't be that for you, Chris. I'm sorry."

"Can't? Or won't?"

"Fine...I won't be. It's not who I am. This kind of love affair? It's not what I want."

It should have sounded crazy but it made sense. He didn't want this either. Not this. This was obsession or something worse. It was a Harlequin romance novel. It was endless nights spent lost in each other. It was something too…full. And both of them had just been seeking something empty.

"I don't care about any of that right now. Come home with me." She hated the raw need that spilled through her body and coveted it. It had been so long since a man had burned her up like this. Part of her hungered for that. Not the emotion of it but the raw, painful, nearly mindless greed of sheer lust.

"Ada…come home with me."

His hands slid under the dress, over the thigh highs, over her hips. "Say yes."

"Chris…"

"Say yes."

Her hands skimmed his beard. The beard he'd grown for her. "Yes."

It was the wrong move here. Wrong. She was never a woman given to wrong moves. But she wanted to go home with him.

She just didn't know what it would mean when she did.  
...................................

The door wasn't even locked when Claire came home.

He was sitting in the kitchen with a bottle of vodka on the table. No glass. Just the bottle.

She leaned on the frame of the kitchen door and watched him. "What are you doing, Piers?"

He glanced up from the table, "Isn't it obvious? I'm drowning my sorrows."

They held eyes in the dark. "What sorrows?"

The silence dragged out after her question. Somewhere in the little house, the clock gonged the hour. Claire jumped from the sound. Piers didn't.

But he did answer her, "The ones that come from knowing I'll never be what you want."

"Don't be stupid, Piers. You're just not ready. Don't be stupid here."

"Too late. Already stupid. It was stupid to think this would work right? Right? You need a guy who can take you to a fancy party, Claire. I can't."

Claire turned away to get a bottle of water from the fridge. Her heart was galloping in fear of this conversation. She had to be soooo careful here. He was in a delicate place.

"You mean you won't, Piers. Not can't. WON'T."

"...fine. Won't. Why would I? People would cringe if they saw us together. People would judge. You think I can stand there beside a woman like you and ever compare? I'm not good enough for you. I'm a fucking disgrace. Pitiful. A wreck. I'm trapped in this house like a fucking monster...you just have to deal with it."

She turned back to face him. The moonlight spilled silver over his ravaged face. He looked so broken. How did she fix this? It was handling a bomb with kid gloves. Every word mattered here.

"There's no comparison. And the only shame would be yours. I'm proud of you. I'm thrilled to be with you. I love you."

He jerked, shaking his head.

"Yeah. I love you, Piers. I do. So..." She took her water bottle and moved toward the hallway, "That's just how it is. And that's something that YOU just have to deal it. Come to bed when you're done pouting. And don't forget to lock up."

He sat in the dark and watched her until she was lost to the shadows.

And he was desperately afraid of the truth that waited in that bedroom.

Because he'd loved her from the moment she'd stepped into that gym.

And he was terrified that he would never be the kind of man she deserved. And that she'd always wonder what she might have had...if she hadn't settled for the cripple that had saved her brother.

He picked up the bottle of vodka...and took a long pull.  
....................

Leon Kennedy sat alone in his loft, swirling a highball filled with scotch.

Damnit.

Double damnit.

Why hadn't he seen that coming with Sherry? Why hadn't he known? Of course it all made sense now. And the last thirteen years replayed in his head like a movie. Of course she'd idolize him. Why not? He'd rescued her, helped her, and been there while she turned from girl to woman. She simply saw him through rose colored glasses.

She didn't really want him. He was far too old for her. Far too…

And he paused, considering. Was she right after all? Was he stupid? She'd come to him and bared her soul and he'd…what? Pushed her away?

Why?

Logically, yes, he was older. But it wasn't obscene. It wasn't even obscure. Not even a decade. And she was a beautiful woman. Why had he never looked at her before and seen that? Would she forever be twelve years old in his mind? Would she always be little Sherry Birkin who'd crawled through the ducts of the RPD and managed to keep herself alive?

Leon studied the skyline and the ample bosom of the night beyond. The bedroom was huge and over looked by a skylight. It was one wide open area with a bathroom off to one side. He'd designed it that way…in case he needed to confront an enemy in it. There were no places for someone to hide where he couldn't kill them.

He divested himself of his clothes and climbed into the claw foot tab in the bathroom. He pulled the curtain and washed the party from his body. He had come straight here from the fundraiser. He was tired of being polite, taxed out on platitudes, and angry at himself.

How had he been so blind?

Maybe he could talk to her about it at dinner. Maybe he could explain. Maybe if they just laid it all out there she'd realize that he wasn't for her. He was too…damaged. Too used up. He was old and broken and had spent most of his life pining for a woman who didn't even realize he was alive. So was he stupid? Yeah, he kinda was.

It was something he shared with Redfield, it seemed.

Because he'd seen them in conference room. At first, nothing to really pull the eye...and then? The arguing. Animated. Shouting. Ada showing more emotion than he'd ever seen from her.

And Redfield?

Redfield had put his arms around her and kissed her.

In the whole of his life, Leon figured there was a handful of things that shocked him. The first zombie he'd ever seen. The first time a woman had put her mouth on his dick. The first time he'd killed a man in cold blood.

And Ada Wong locked in a heated embrace with Chris Redfield.

He wasn't sure how he felt about it, honestly.

He waited for the pain. But he was surprisingly passe about it.

He was not, however, passe about his anger at Sherry. At Sherry? Or FOR Sherry?

An interesting conundrum.

He climbed from the shower and toweled off his hair, draping the towel around his hips as he moved over to swipe a hand over the foggy mirror and look at himself. He hadn't shaved in weeks and still had only the finest amount of a shadow of stubble on his face. He couldn't grow a beard. Not a full one. Never had been able to. He pushed his wet hair back until it appeared short and cropped close to his head. Wet, the blonde was very dark.

His body was disciplined, well honed. He had a washboard stomach and well defined arms and shoulders. He was lean, wirey. It was a runners build. A boxer. A swimmer. He was bred for agility and speed. His chest was smooth and hairless and had always been. He supposed he could see what a woman might want in him. He was classically handsome.

And he was, to Ada Wong, apparently what Sherry had been to him.

He was so busy looking in another direction he'd failed to see what was right there in front of him. Had she loved him all this time? Surely it was puppy love. A little girl to the boy who'd rescued her. Surely.

He stepped from the bathroom and there she was. Shock froze him on the spot.

"Sherry."

Good, she thought, he was already naked. That would make this easier. And she nearly swallowed her tongue at the sight of him there naked but for that towel and beaded with droplets of water. If she started touching him, she wondered if she'd ever stop.

"I decided I like stupid."

His pulse sped up.

And Sherry Birkin became the first person in history to "get the drop" on Leon Kennedy.


End file.
